1885.
Oil on canvas, 46 x 33 cm.
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.
Head of a Man, Nuenen, March-April 1885.
Oil on canvas, 44 x 32 cm.
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.
Later, when van Gogh had begun his career as a painter, he would continue struggling – always in vain – to win the respect of the highly regarded dealer.
During his apprenticeship, van Gogh came into contact with the paintings of the salons and of the School of Barbizon, whose most distinguished representative, Jean-François Millet (1814–1875), became one of the most influential figures for the painter. As Goupil & Co. also sold prints, the trainee saw reproductions of many masterpieces. Here, van Gogh built his new nest: the gallery, and later the museums, became his “land of pictures.”[22]
In August 1872, Theo came to see his elder brother in The Hague. During this meeting the two young men, then 19 and 15 years old, became closer in a way that changes relatives into friends. Thereafter, Vincent regarded Theo as his alter ego. Since the brothers lived most of the time in different cities – with the exception of the two years during which they shared a flat in Paris – they communicated through letters: they discussed art, argued about family problems, and gave one another advice about their illnesses and love affairs. Vincent wrote more than 600 letters to his brother for over eighteen years, who collected them faithfully. Most of these were published after van Gogh’s death. Roughly forty of Theo’s letters survived. The others were the casualties of Vincent’s frequent relocations, in which a large number of drawings and paintings were also lost.
“What pleasant days we spent together at The Hague; I think so often of that walk on the Rijswijk road, when we drank milk at the mill after the rain,”[23] van Gogh recalled wistfully in the summer of 1873. By then his training had come to an end, and the young man found himself working for Goupil’s in London:
The business here is only a stockroom, and our work is quite different from that in The Hague; but I shall probably get used to it. At six o’clock my work is already done for the day, so that I have a nice bit of time for myself, which I spend pleasantly – taking walks, reading and letter-writing.[24]
Van Gogh forgets to write about another activity in his spare time: drawing. Ten years later, just as he was about to become an artist, he remembered: “In London how often I stood drawing on the Thames Embankment, on my way home from Southampton Street in the evening, and it came to nothing.”[25]
His favorite reading in London was L’Amour by Jules Michelet: “To me the book has been both a revelation and a Gospel at the same time […] And that man and wife can be one, that is to say, one whole and not two halves, yes, I believe that too.”[26] When van Gogh wrote these sentences at the end of July 1874, he had every hope that his revelation would be fulfilled. But his love for Ursula Loyer, the daughter of his landlady, ended in disaster. Seven years later van Gogh summed up the events: “I gave up a girl and she married another, and I went away, far from her, but kept her in my thoughts always. Fatal.”[27] This representation of the facts is dubious, at best: Eugénie was already engaged when van Gogh met her, and it was not his decision to leave London; in May 1875, he was transferred to Paris – against his will.
Head of a Woman, The Hague, December 1882.
Lead pencil, ink and black pencil, 47.6 x 26.3 cm.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
By this time, van Gogh had already given up his gospel of earthly love and turned instead to the love of God. His religious enthusiasm was perhaps one reason why he had to leave Goupil’s in London. The business, moved into a bigger house, was no longer just a stockroom but a public gallery. And the solitary and eccentric van Gogh had difficulty pleasing the clientele. His family may also have wanted to bring an end to his ‘affair’ with Ursula. Van Gogh himself suspected his father and uncle of being behind the transfer. He retaliated with silence – a weapon that he came to rely on quite often in conflicts. Theo, who had taken Vincent’s place in Goupil’s office in The Hague, thus became the only member of the family with whom van Gogh maintained contact. The brothers continued to exchange their opinions about art.
Vincent wrote often of his visits to the Louvre, and in particular, of his passion for the paintings of Ruysdael and Rembrandt. Above all else, van Gogh was an enthusiast, not a dealer, and he had little patience for the paintings he was supposed to sell at Goupil’s. His parents were informed of his failure in the business. When Vincent came home for Christmas in 1875 – clearly without having obtained permission to leave the gallery during the busiest time of the year – his father suggested that he resign. But by then it was already too late, and the gallery manager dismissed van Gogh immediately after his return to Paris.
Van Gogh decided not to return to Holland, but to go to England. He found work as an assistant teacher in Ramsgate and later as an assistant preacher in Isleworth. In October 1876 he gave his first sermon, whose central thesis was: “We are pilgrims on the earth and strangers – we come from afar and we are going far.”[28] When he returned to Holland to join his family for Christmas, his parents had already decided to change the direction of his journey through life, by steering him into the bookstore of Pieter Kornelius Braat in Dordrecht. Vincent accepted and took a position in the accounting department of the shop. But his Bible studies continued to be his main interest. On his first Sunday in Dordrecht, van Gogh went to church twice to listen to a sermon about this verse from the first epistle to the Corinthians: “Now we look through a mirror into a dark reason, now I only know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known myself.”[29] In his letters to Theo, van Gogh referred to this sentence obliquely: “When we meet again, we shall be as good friends as ever; sometimes I feel so delighted that we are again living on the same soil and speaking the same language.”[30] Before leaving Dordrecht in April 1877 – since he spent most of his nights engrossed in the Bible, he was too sleepy during the day to be of much use in the bookshop – he heard the same sermon again. In a letter to Theo, he wrote: “After church I walked along the path behind the station where we walked together; my thoughts were full of you, and I wished we might be together.”[31]
Van Gogh’s understanding of the biblical verse reveals his yearning to be known. This desire persisted through most of his life, manifesting itself in his friendship with Theo, in his love for Ursula Loyer or his cousin Kee, and in his attitudes about religion or art. The common thread in each of these is an intense longing to discover himself in a dialogue with others. The mercantile affairs of an art dealer or an accountant offered no such satisfaction. During his stay in Dordrecht, van Gogh finally arrived at a plan for his future: he set out to become a minister.
The Potato Eaters, Nuenen, 1885.
Oil on canvas, 82 x 114 cm.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, Nuenen, October 1884.
Oil on canvas, 41.5 x 32 cm.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
P. C. Görlitz, van Gogh’s roommate in this time, wrote of him:
He was totally different from the usual type of man. His face was ugly, his mouth more or less awry, his face was densely covered with freckles, and he had hair of a reddish hue. As I said, his face was ugly, but as soon as he spoke about