#van gogh letters

[careful-disorder]

Vincent van Gogh, Alychamps, Autumn

"How beautiful it is outside – I sometimes yearn for a country where it would always be autumn, but then we’d have no snow and no apple blossom and no corn and stubble fields." Van Gogh Letter to Anthon van Rappard

[vernalagnia-blog]

i impulsively started reading van gogh's letters to his brother, with the goal of going through all 900 of them. the archive has been wonderful and easy to use. i've heard all great things about his letters to theo van gogh and so far, by letter #13, things are very sweet.

i guess my idea of van gogh stuck with the popular image of a sickly man striving for great arts. but if his early letters to theo were of any indication, he was physically active, taking great pleasure in rowing and walking, and he was so very curious about the arts and arts scene in anywhere he lived

he sent a copy of his favourite poem to his brother!

[foundatthemuseum]

The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals - 1624

(information, thoughts and sources below the break)

Found in The Wallace Collection, London, The Laughing Cavalier is probably a portrait you've seen as in a print or referenced in film. Despite it's name however, the sitter isn't depicted laughing and was almost certainly not a cavalier. The portrait gained it's name in the Victorian era and stuck to this day.

Frans Hals paintings were widely regarded in his lifetime and by those after, an 1885 letter from Vincent van Gogh to his younger brother Theo van Gogh enthuses about Hals' use of colour, particularly noting the depth of tone in his blacks, writing that  "Frans Hals has no less than twenty-seven blacks" which is especially apparent in this painting along with the remarkable embroidery.

The portrait can be seen at The Wallace Collection in London, as well as online as part of the Frans Hals: The Male Portrait exhibition.

(opinions) I loved being able to see this portrait in person, on a good screen you can see the difference in the blacks but as someone who had only ever seen it in low-quality prints it honestly stunned me when I saw it in person. Up-close you can really see every little detail and regardless who the sitter was (we have theories, but it's not certain who he was) he has a level of charisma in this portrait that's very charming.

Sources:

The Laughing Cavaler image - The Wallace Collection

Vincent Van Gough's letter - Van Gough's letters Webexhibits

[thebiographicalreview]

Page 4 and page 509 of Penguin Classics edition of the Letters of Vincent van Gogh.

[flowerytale]

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to his brother Theo

[poetic-questions]

from "The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh" (c. 5-6 September 1889)

[metamorphesque]

— Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

[liriostigre]

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Anna van Gogh. December 1889. The Illustrated Provence Letters of van Gogh selected and edited by Martin Bailey

[derangedrhythms]

[…] I’ve got nature & art & poetry, & if that isn’t enough, what is?

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh ⁠— Theo van Gogh - January 1874, tr. Arnold Pomerans

[darkautumnrust]

[careful-disorder]

Le Japon artistique : documents d'art et d'industrie. Vol 1 - Archive

"I have the reproduction (Bing publication) of a Japanese drawing: A single blade of grass. What an example of awareness — you’ll see it one day." - Vincent van Gogh, Letter to Emile Bernard

[persephoneprice]

Finnick Odair, Annie Cresta, and the Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

[escapismsworld]

“A man carries a bright flame in his soul, but no one wants to bask near him; passers-by only notice the smoke escaping through the chimney and go on their way.”

-Vincent Van Gogh, from a letter to his brother Theo.

[theacademiccottage]

“One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”

- Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

[sadsongbird]

“I feel such a creative force in me: I am convinced that there will be a time when, let us say, I will make something good every day, on a regular basis....I am doing my very best to make every effort because I am longing so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things mean painstaking work, disappointment, and perseverance.”

― Vincent Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

[truncheonpress]

“What am I in the eyes of most people—a nonentity or an eccentric or an obnoxious person—someone who has no position in society and never will have, in short the lowest of the low. Well, then—even if that were all absolutely true, I should one day like to show by my work what there is in the heart of such an eccentric, of such a nobody.” —Vincent van Gogh