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828 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, on or about Friday, 13 December 1889.

metadata
No. 828 (Brieven 1990 812, Complete Letters GAC 36)
From: Paul Gauguin
To: Vincent van Gogh
Date: Le Pouldu, on or about Friday, 13 December 1889

Source status
Original manuscript

Location
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. nos. b869 a-b V/1962

Date
This letter was previously dated to about 20 October, but it must have been written two months later. Gauguin, who had wanted to answer a letter from Van Gogh ‘ages ago’ (l. 2), talks about the decoration he is making together with Meijer de Haan for an inn in Le Pouldu. In his letter of 22 October to Theo, De Haan makes no mention whatsoever of a decoration; on the contrary, he is planning to devote himself completely to studies in the coming year (FR b1042). Nor did Gauguin mention it in a letter he wrote to Vincent (letter 817) some time between about Sunday, 10 and Wednesday, 13 November. Robert Welsh therefore suggested another date, on the basis of a letter from De Haan to Theo of 13 December 1889 (FR b1319), in which De Haan writes that the four walls have been painted. This agrees with what Gauguin says in the present letter (see Welsh 1989, p. 37 and n. 20). According to Welsh, Gauguin and De Haan did not begin work on the decoration until mid-November.
Van Gogh says in letter 823 of 26 November that he has written to Gauguin; the present letter must be Gauguin’s reply, in which he says that it took him a long time to get around to answering it (l. 2). Moreover, Van Gogh says in letter 829 of about 19 December that he has received a letter from Gauguin: ‘a letter thoroughly impregnated with the proximity of the sea, I think he must be doing fine, rather savage things’; this, too, must refer to the present letter. Another argument for reversing the order of the letters is Gauguin’s reference to Christ in the Garden of Olives(see n. 7). All things considered, we have dated the letter to about Friday, 13 December 1889. Pickvance dated it to about Thursday, 12 December (see exhib. cat. New York 1986, p. 56).

Additional
Gauguin enclosed a sketch with colour annotations, which is not known. Cf. n. 4.

Sketches

  1. Breton woman, seen from the back, letter sketch
  2. Face of a Breton, letter sketch

original text
 1r:1
Mon cher Vincent
Depuis longtemps je devais vous répondre à votre longue lettre;1 je sais combien vous êtes isolé en Provence et que vous aimez à recevoir des nouvelles des copains qui vous intéressent, et cependant beaucoup de circonstances m’en ont empêché. Entre autres un assez grand travail que nous avons entrepris en commun de Haan et moi: une décoration de l’auberge où nous mangeons.–2 On commence par un mur puis on finit par faire les quatre, même le vitrail.3 C’est une chose qui apprend beaucoup, par conséquent utile. De Haama a fait sur le plâtre même un grand panneau de 2mètres sur 1,50 de haut. Je vous envoie ci-joint un croquis fait sommairement de la chose.– Paysannes d’ici travaillant au chanvre sur un fond de meules de paille.4
Je trouve celà très bien et très-complet, fait aussi sérieusement qu’un tableau.–
J’ai fait à la suite une paysanne en train de filer sur le bord de la mer, son chien et sa vache.–5 Nos deux portraits sur chaque porte.–6 Dans la fièvre du travail, et la hâte de voir tout terminé, le moment de se coucher arrivait aussitot et je remettais ma lettre à plus tard – maintenant causons.–
de tableaux religieux je n’en ai fait qu’un cette année,7 et celà il est bon de faire quelquefois des essais de toute sorte, afin d’entretenir ses forces imaginatives, et on revoit la nature après avec plaisir. Enfin tout celà est affaire de tempérament.– Moi ce que j’ai fait surtout cette année, ce sont de simples enfants de  1v:2 paysan, se promenant indifferents sur le bord de la mer avec leurs vaches.8 Seulement comme le trompe l’oeil du plein air et de quoique ce soit ne me plaît pas, je cherche à mettre dans ces figures désolées, le sauvage que j’y vois et qui est en moi aussi.– Ici en Bretagne les paysans ont un air du moyen âge et n’ont pas l’air de penser un instant que Paris existe et qu’on soit en 1889 – tout le contraire du midi.– Ici tout est rude comme la langue Bretonne, bien fermé (il semble à tout jamais).– Les costumes sont aussi presque symbolique, influencés par les superstitions du catholicisme.– Voyez le dos, corsage une croix,

[sketch A]
la tête envelopée d’une marmotte noire comme les religieuses – avec celà les figures sont presque asiatiques, jaunes et triangulaires, sévères.

[sketch B]
Que diable, je veux aussi consulter la nature mais je ne veux pas en retirer ce que j’y vois et ce qui vient à ma pensée.– Les roches, les costumes sont noirs et jaunes; je ne peux pourtant pas les mettre blonds et coquets.– Encore craintifs du seigneur et du curé les bretons tiennent leurs chapeaux et tous leurs ustensiles comme s’ils étaient dans une église; je les peins aussi en cet état et non dans une verve méridionale.–
En ce moment je fais une toile de 50, des femmes ramassant du goëmon sur le bord de la mer.–9 Ce sont comme des boîtes étagées de distance en distances, vêtements bleus et coiffes noires  2r:3 et celà malgré l’âpreté du froid.– Fumier qu’ils ramassent pour fumer leurs terres, couleur ocre de ru avec des reflets fauve.– Sables roses et non jaunes à cause de l’humidité probablement – mer sombre. En voyant celà tous les jours il me vient comme une bouffée de lutte pour la vie, de tristesse et d’obéissance aux lois malheureuses.– Cette bouffée je cherche à la mettre sur la toile, non par hazard, mais par raisonnement en exagérant peut être certaines rigidités de pose, certaines couleurs sombres etc... Tout celà est peut être manieré mais dans le tableau, où est le naturel?– Tout depuis les âges les plus reculés est dans les tableaux, tout à fait conventionel, voulu, d’un bout à l’autre et bien loin du naturel, par conséquent bien manieré.– Ils ont, les maîtres anciens, direz-vous, le genie.– C’est vrai et nous ne l’avons pas, mais ce n’est pas une raison pour ne pas procéder comme eux.– Pour un Japonais ce que nous faisons est manieré et vice versâ; celà provient qu’il y a entre les deux un écart notable dans la vision, les usages et les types.– Donc si un homme par suite de race, tempérament ou autre cause, voit, sent, pense different de la masse il est peu naturel et par suite manieré.–
 2v:4
Vous avez-vu à Arles le portail de St Trophine,b vu et exécuté bien différent des hommes du nord avec des proportions bien loin de la nature, et celà vous l’avez admiré, sans cauchemar10 – non en art (la verité est ce que l’on sent, dans l’état d’âme où on est).– Rêve qui veut ou qui peut.– S’y laisse aller qui veut ou qui peut.– Et le rêve vient toujours de la realité dans la nature.– Un Indien sauvage ne verra jamais en rêve un homme habillé comme à Paris – etc....
de Haam travaille toujours au Pouldu, vous remercie de votre bon souvenir et vous dit bien des choses.–
Il est (seul) l’auteur d’Uriel, le tableau dont vous avez parlé dans une lettre à Isaacson.–11
Je n’ai pas trace de votre dessin d’après Rembrandt dont vous me proposiez échange (que je ferai avec plaisir).–12
Vous serre cordialement la main.

T. à V.
P. Gauguin.

translation
 1r:1
My dear Vincent,
I should have replied to your long letter1 ages ago; I know how isolated you are in Provence and that you like to receive news from the pals who interest you, and yet many circumstances have prevented me from doing so. Among others, a rather large job which De Haan and I have undertaken together: a decoration for the inn where we eat2. You begin with one wall, then you end up doing all four, even the stained-glass window.3 It’s something that teaches you a lot, and so it’s useful. De Haan has done a large panel on the actual plaster, 2 metres by 1.50 high. Enclosed I’m sending you a swift croquis of the thing. Peasant women from around here working with hemp against a background of ricks of straw.4
I consider it very good and very complete, done as seriously as a painting.
After that I did a peasant woman spinning at the sea’s edge, her dog and her cow.5 Our two portraits on each door.6 In the fever of work, and the haste to see it all finished, bedtime arrived all of a sudden and I postponed my letter until later – now let’s chat.
I’ve only done one religious painting this year,7 and it’s good sometimes to make attempts of every sort, so as to sustain one’s imaginative powers, and afterwards one looks at nature with pleasure again. Anyway, that’s all a matter of temperament. What I myself have done most of all this year are simple peasant children,  1v:2 walking indifferently beside the sea with their cows.8 But because I don’t like the trompe l’oeil of the outdoors and of whatever else, I try to put into these desolate figures the savagery that I see in them, and that’s in me too. Here in Brittany the peasants have a medieval look about them and don’t appear to think for a moment that Paris exists and that we’re in the year 1889 – quite the opposite of the south. Here everything is rough like the Breton language, very closed-in (for evermore, it seems). The costumes are also almost symbolic, influenced by the superstitions of Catholicism. Look at the back, bodice a cross,

[sketch A]

the head wrapped in a black kerchief like nuns – in addition the figures are almost Asiatic, yellow and triangular, severe.

[sketch B]

What the devil, I want to consult nature too, but I don’t want to take from it what I see there and what comes into my mind. The rocks, the costumes are black and yellow; I can’t put them down as blond and coquettish, can I? Still fearful of Our Lord and the priest, the Breton men hold their hats and all their utensils as if they were in a church; I also paint them in that state and not with a southern verve.
At the moment I’m doing a no. 50 canvas, of women gathering wrack at the sea’s edge.9 They’re like boxes stacked up here and there, blue clothing and black coifs  2r:3 and this despite the bitterness of the cold. Manure which they gather to fertilize their land, red-brown ochre with ruddy highlights. Pink sands, not yellow, because of the damp probably – dark sea. Seeing this every day I get a kind of gust of wind for life, of sadness and obedience to unfortunate laws. I try to put this gust of wind on canvas, not haphazardly but rationally, perhaps exaggerating a certain rigidity of pose, certain sombre colours etc... All of this is mannered perhaps, but where’s the natural in a painting? Everything in paintings since the most distant ages has been completely conventional, deliberate throughout and very far from the natural, consequently very mannered. You’ll say that they, the ancient masters, have genius. That’s true, and we don’t have it, but that’s no reason not to proceed like them. To a Japanese person what we do is mannered and vice versa; this comes from the fact that there’s a notable distance between the two in vision, customs and types. So if a man sees, feels, thinks differently from the mass because of race, temperament or other cause, he is unnatural and consequently mannered.  2v:4
You’ve seen the doorway to St Trophime in Arles, perceived and executed very differently from the manner of the northerners, with proportions far removed from nature, and you admired that, without any nightmare10 – no, in art (the truth is what one feels, in the state of mind one’s in). Let him who wishes or who can, dream. Let him who wants to or who can, drift along. And the dream always comes from the reality in nature. In a dream, an Indian savage will never see a man dressed the way they are in Paris – etc...
De Haan is still working at Le Pouldu, thanks you for your kind regards and sends his best wishes.
He (alone) is the creator of Uriel, the painting you spoke of in a letter to Isaäcson.11
I know nothing about your drawing after Rembrandt which you were proposing to exchange with me (which I’ll do with pleasure).12
I shake your hand cordially.

Ever yours,
P. Gauguin.
notes
1. This was the (unknown) letter mentioned by Van Gogh in letter 823.
2. The decoration for the dining room of Marie Henry’s inn at Le Pouldu (Brittany) was a collaborative effort by Gauguin, De Haan, Paul Sérusier and Charles Filiger. For the decorative programme, see Welsh 1989 and Gauguin’s Nirvana: painters at Le Pouldu, 1889-1890. Ed. E. M. Zafran. Hartford and London 2001, pp. 61-101.
3. The window in the dining room, which Gauguin and De Haan painted with rustic motifs in oil paint, has not been preserved. Maxime Maufra recalled a decoration with white geese and blue and yellow ornaments, ‘imitating stained glass’. See Maxime Maufra, ‘Souvenirs de Pont-Aven et du Pouldu’, Bulletin des amis du Musée de Rennes. Numéro spécial “Pont-Aven”. Rennes 1978, p. 24.
a. Read: ‘Haan’.
4. De Haan’s fresco, transferred to canvas, is Breton women scutching flax: Labour, 1889 (private collection). Ill. 2295 . The sketch Gauguin made after it is not known. It emerges from Meijer de Haan’s letter of 13 December 1889 to Theo that Gauguin also wrote an ‘explanation of the colours’ on the sketch. De Haan, who remarks that Gauguin is very pleased with the mural, describes it as follows: ‘it is a depiction titled Labour, Pouldu at the height of the harvest, with many figures 1.25 metres high, the whole is 3 by 2 and I finished such a thing very quickly. Also 5 large, detailed still lifes. So that this little room looks truly cosy, since we’ve decorated all the walls with ornaments in character and style’ (FR b1319).
5. Paul Gauguin, Joan of Arc, 1889 (W329) (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 2296 .
6. The two portraits are Self-portrait, 1889 (W323) (Washington, National Gallery of Art (Chester Dale Collection)), Ill. 2145 , and Meijer de Haan, 1889 (W317) (private collection). Ill. 2146 .
7. Gauguin’s previous letter contained a description and a sketch of this painting, Christ in the Garden of Olives . See letter 817, n. 10.
8. In 1889 Gauguin made several paintings of this subject, such as Breton girls in front of the sea (W340) (Tokyo, Museum of Western Art) and Cowherdess (W344) (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek).
9. Paul Gauguin, Women collecting kelp ii, 1889 (W349) (Essen, Museum Folkwang). Ill. 111 .
b. Read: ‘Trophime’.
10. In a letter to Theo, Vincent compared this Romanesque portal to ‘a Chinese nightmare’. See letter 588, n. 8.
11. For Meijer de Haan’s Uriel Acosta , see letter 708, n. 2. Van Gogh had sent his letter to Isaäcson in care of Theo on about 8 October (see letter 810); apparently Isaäcson, who was staying in Paris, had sent it on to De Haan in Le Pouldu.
12. There is no known drawing by Van Gogh after Rembrandt. It is possible that Gauguin was mistaken, and that Van Gogh had suggested exchanging his painting Angel (after ‘Rembrandt’) (F 624 / JH 1778) for one of Gauguin’s works. Gauguin had written earlier about a reproduction of an angel by Rembrandt, of which Van Gogh had a copy (letter 817).