‘A handshake, Vincent’. Van Gogh’s Letters to the World

I was deeply moved by the letters that the artist wrote to his brother and to some friends in the last few years of his life.

Some will be familiar with the liberating exercise that is reaching out through writing, launching a flare at sea and hoping someone will catch sight of our distress and acknowledge it. For the introvert soul, this comes paired with the inevitable anxiety that the light will fail to ignite — like a damp firework — and we’ll be left sailing in the sempiternal darkness with all the less mental energy for it.

We’re left without a choice but to try, such is the profound energy that we gain from feeling a sense of communion with another human being through our words. For Vincent Van Gogh also, there was no life without creation, but it was sharing that process that gave it its ultimate meaning.

For Art and For Life

This is the apt title of Penguin’s compilation of Van Gogh’s letters, mostly to his brother Theo. It answers, in the artist’s own skilful words, the question of why persist in the face of adversity. They’re only the letters the artist wrote, so we see just the flare, not the people in the shore. But we do know that the spark is seen and that, every time, the artist is rescued by his brother in more ways than one.

The texts are so articulate, both in being prosaic and deep at once, that they cannot fail to move us. The hardships of the artist, but also the perseverance, are constant themes in them. Through them, Vincent masterfully gives us a full picture of what it was like to be him. But because he doesn’t understand life without his surroundings, he also reconstructs an entire atmosphere, a vibe attached to the city of Paris but also the alive countryside, and expresses his desire to create a space for all artists to come together. For him, it was only the natural state of being in the world to share and to come together, to help and learn from each other. So much did he believe in this vision of the world, that when he failed to build this hub it triggered the beginning of the end of his unique personality.

Starry Night

One of the most moving aspects of the book is to hear, years before its being given to the world, of the “starry night vision”, as Van Gogh refers to it. He talks about it with respect, almost as if he wasn’t ready yet for the ultimate canvas to be painted, as if every work was just rehearsal, serving to keep him occupied while he mulled over this magnificent vision and how to bring it to fruition. It would, of course, turn out to be one of his most famous paintings and also one of his last.

Photo Credit: dilari irem, Pexels.com

A Blessed Madness

It is hard to believe that these letters are not more well-known by the general public. Why build the mad artist persona, covered with stigma — so mad he was, he cut his own ear — when the artist himself couldn’t have painted a more nuanced, self-aware and desperate picture of his own condition? Laziness is all that comes to mind. I, for one, am embarrassed to have lived so many years without knowing Van Gogh was so conscious of his own bouts, and how they affected his mood and his performance, even his art. There is probably no sadder statement in the book than this one:

Now If I recover, I shall start afresh, but I shall never again be able to reach the heights to which the illness to some extent led me.

Letter to the Future

The epistolary genre is a fascinating one no matter the period. Against all odds, there is power in only ever seeing one end of the story and just intuiting what the recipient might have said. The priorities, the disappointment, the joie de vivre, all this is encapsulated in a person’s letters as it would be in a diary, only here we find what the person really was willing to share. And in the case of Van Gogh, it was his insatiable love for art, for life, that transpires through every single page.

And remember...

You can listen to our podcast, or check out this book, which also talks about a profound artist - Henry Fuseli.

Photo Credit: nurs raw, Pexels.com