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Friendships for Better and for Worse
It is widely believed that Vincent van Gogh found it hard to stay friends with people, and so he had a lonely life. But is this true?
Not completely. As an artist Vincent was in the centre of things. He had countless dealings with his fellow painters. He even worked with some of them, with varying degrees of success. Even in his darkest days he had friends who rallied to support him.
Like everyone else, I have need of relationships of friendship or affection or trusting companionship, and am not like a street pump or lamp-post, whether of stone or iron…
To his brother Theo from the Borinage, August 11-14, 1879
As soon as Vincent decided to become a painter, at the age of twenty-seven, he set out to meet other artists and models.
Vincent was not an easy person to know. Friendships were a roller-coaster of attraction and rejection. His self-centred behaviour sometimes led to massive rows.
Anthon, Ridder van Rappard (1858-1892) in c. 1880
At the urging of his brother Theo, in 1880 Vincent visited the young Dutch painter Anthon van Rappard, who was studying at the art academy in Brussels. The first meeting between this sprig of the nobility and Vincent the ‘drifter’ was rather awkward, but soon they became friends.
The day we met in Brussels is still as fresh in my mind as if it were only yesterday. He arrived at my room at 9 a.m. We didn’t get on to begin with, but we did later, when we’d worked together a few times.
Anthon van Rappard to Vincent’s mother, Anna Van Gogh-Carbentus, 1890
This winter I met a pregnant woman, abandoned by the man whose child she was carrying. (…) I took that woman as a model and worked with her the whole winter. (…) This woman is now attached to me like a tame dove.
To his brother Theo from The Hague, c. May 7, 1882
Vincent van Gogh, Woman seated, 1882. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
Vincent described his relationship with Sien as two unhappy people sharing each other’s company to make the unbearable bearable.
‘I do hope, brother, that you don’t think badly of Sien and me. That lass has put up with my disagreeable side, and in many respects she understands me better than others.’
To his brother Theo from The Hague, May 27, 1882
When Vincent finally went to Drenthe in September −on his own− he did what he could to provide for Sien and the children. He left with a heavy heart, finding it particularly hard to leave little Willem, to whom he was as attached as if the child was his.
One of these rows was with Anthon van Rappard, who criticized Vincent’s first great masterpiece: The Potato Eaters. His friend’s criticism really stung. Vincent was furious and wrote:
'I’ll stick to my guns a bit, though, because I don’t want the thing to keep dragging on, and I don’t want a grudging friendship. Either cordial or over.'
To Anthon van Rappard from Nuenen, c. July 16, 1885
Lithograph of The Potato Eaters, 1885
Vincent and Van Rappard remained in touch for five years, mainly by letter. They encouraged one another, but they also criticized each other’s work. Vincent worked in Van Rappard’s studio in Brussels for a while, and he also visited his friend in the Netherlands. Van Rappard, in turn, went to see Vincent in Etten and Nuenen. They worked together in the countryside.
It all went wrong in 1885. Vincent had just completed his Potato Eaters, which he considered a masterpiece. Proudly, he sent Van Rappard a lithograph of this painting. Van Rappard responded critically:
‘You’ll agree with me that such work isn’t intended seriously. You can do better than this — fortunately; but why, then, observe and treat everything so superficially? (…) That coquettish little hand of that woman at the back, how untrue! (…) And why must the woman on the left have a sort of little pipe stem with a cube on it for a nose?’- Anthon van Rappard to Vincent van Gogh, May 24, 1885
While Vincent and Van Rappard set their disagreement aside in their correspondence, neither felt the need to visit the other again.
‘When I say to you that I want to remain friends, and mean it, though, it’s because I see in you an endeavour that I regard very highly.’
To Anthon van Rappard from Nuenen, c. August 18, 1885
In Paris Vincent met young painters from the artistic vanguard in the studio of the respected artist Fernand Cormon at Boulevard de Clichy. It was customary for an aspiring painter to become a pupil of a successful artist. In the end, though, Vincent learned most from the artists he met and became friends with.
Cormon's studio, 1885-1886
Vincent arrived in Cormon’s studio in 1886 but only worked there for three months. He is not in this photograph, which was taken shortly before he got there. Émile Bernard is in the top row on the far right, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (in a bowler hat) sits in the foreground on the left. Fernand Cormon himself sits to the right of the easel.
Julien ‘Père’ Tanguy’s shop was a meeting place for avant-garde artists. This sympathetic colourman exhibited their work, including Vincent’s, in his shop. He also often supplied them with painting materials on tick – until his wife stopped him, to Vincent’s intense irritation.
...when I started working at Asnières I had lots of canvases and Tanguy was very good to me. He still is, (...) but his old witch of a wife noticed what was going on and objected to it. Now I gave [her] a piece of my mind and said it was her fault if I wouldn’t buy anything else from them. Père Tanguy’s wise enough to keep quiet, and he’ll do what I ask of him all the same.
To his brother Theo from Paris, between about 17 and 19 July 1887
Vincent van Gogh, Three Pairs of Shoes, 1886-1887 Harvard Art Museums. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, USA
On the portrait Russell wrote in large red letters, which have now faded: Vincent. J.P. Russell, pictor. Amitié. Paris 1886 (Vincent. J.P. Russell painted this. In friendship.)
The portrait was probably swapped for a still life of shoes that Vincent had painted.
John Peter Russell (1858-1930), c. 1888
John Peter Russell was an Australian painter who worked in France for many years. Famous artists such as Monet and Matisse thought highly of his work, but he never achieved worldwide recognition. Vincent met Russell in Cormon’s studio and was impressed by his paintings.
One of the twelve drawings that Vincent sent Russell
But Vincent also saw Russell as a valuable contact. Russell had money…
In the summer of 1888, when Vincent was in Arles, he sent Russell twelve drawings of his paintings in an endeavour to get his friend to take an ongoing interest in his work. He also told Russell about his friend Gauguin’s work.
Like anyone else, Vincent needed friends to feel he was being supported. With some he would discuss important issues in life, while with others he would go out for a couple of drinks.
The bonds he maintained with his artistic friends were always intense. Vincent was something of a father figure to the young Émile Bernard. The worldly wise Paul Gauguin, on the other hand, was someone to look up to. Vincent believed he could learn a lot from him.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), c. 1889
Vincent also got to know Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec better. He often brought his work to show Lautrec in his studio, which was just around the corner from Vincent’s brother Theo’s flat. Influenced by Lautrec, Vincent experimented briefly with diluted oil paint.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) in 1891
Vincent got to know Paul Gauguin at the end of 1887. The French painter had just returned from his trip to Martinique. They swapped paintings. Vincent’s brother Theo exhibited Gauguin’s pictures and ceramics in his gallery in Boulevard Montmartre. He also purchased a painting, 'The Mango Trees, Martinique', from him.
Vincent had a brief relationship with Café Le Tambourin’s owner, Agostina Segatori, who was twelve years older. He hung his flower still lifes in her café in the hope of finding buyers. He also staged an exhibition of Japanese prints he had collected.
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c. 23 and c. 25 July 1887
Eventually they broke up, although Vincent wrote to his brother:
‘As far as Miss Segatori is concerned, that’s another matter altogether, I still feel affection for her and I hope she still feels some for me.’
To his brother Theo from Paris, between about 23 and about 25 July 1887.
Émile Bernard (1868-1941), c. 1887
Vincent struck up a friendship with Émile Bernard, fifteen years his junior, at Tanguy’s shop in the autumn of 1886. They had met earlier at Cormon’s studio. They worked together from time to time in Bernard’s parents’ garden in Asnières, where there was a small wooden studio. A lively correspondence developed between the two after Vincent left Paris in 1888.
In thought a very warm handshake, to Anquetin too, to other friends if you see them, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
To Émile Bernard, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, c. 26 November 1889
Bernard and Vincent (seen from behind) in Asnières at the end of 1886
When he emerged from the back shop, with his high, broad forehead, he was so striking I was almost frightened; but we soon made friends
Émile Bernard
After two years, the hectic Parisian lifestyle began to get on Vincent’s nerves, and he left for Arles in the South of France at the beginning of 1888. Now, though, he missed the contacts with his artistic friends. They continued their passionate debates about art in letters.
In Arles Vincent rented four rooms in the Yellow House with the green shutters. He wanted to fit it out as a studio, the Studio of the South, where like-minded artists who felt misunderstood could work together. Artists like Gauguin, Bernard and himself.
The interests of these ‘modern impressionists’, as Gauguin called them, would be looked after by Vincent’s brother Theo in Paris.
Vincent wanted to set up an artists’ studio in Arles with his friends. Meanwhile he came up with the idea of exchanging work with them. He asked Gauguin and Bernard to paint each other, but they chose to make self-portraits.
Bernard painted this self-portrait in Pont-Aven, Brittany. Gauguin was there too. Bernard added his portrait as a sketch in the background. On the canvas he added the text ‘à mon copaing Vincent’ and sent it to Arles. Vincent’s response was enthusiastic – ‘a few simple tones, a couple of dark lines, but it’s as elegant as a real, true Manet’.
Detail (top right) from Bernard’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Gauguin, 1888
On the painting Bernard sent to Vincent he wrote: ‘Émile Bernard, à son copaing Vincent’. The ‘g’ after copain (friend) was a joke about the accent of Provence, where Van Gogh was living.
Charles Laval accompanied Gauguin to Martinique. After that he worked with Gauguin and Bernard in Pont-Aven, where he painted this self-portrait. Van Gogh was very taken with it. He wrote to his brother Theo that it would ‘be precisely one of the paintings you speak of, which one takes before the others have recognized the talent’.
A l’ami Vincent. C. Laval 88, detail of the inscription in the bottom right-hand corner
Vincent’s letter sketch of Laval’s portrait, 11 or 12 November 1888
Gauguin made a self-portrait with Bernard as a ´sketch´ on the wall. Van Gogh had nothing good to say about it:
‘Not a hint of cheerfulness. It’s not flesh in the very least, but we can boldly put that down to his intention to make something melancholy; the flesh in the shadows is lugubriously tinged with blue.’
To his brother Theo from Arles, 4-5 October, 1888
Les Misérables: A l’ami Vincent. P.Gauguin 88, detail of the inscription in the bottom right-hand corner
Self-Portrait as a Bonze, 1888, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
In exchange for Gauguin’s self-portrait, Van Gogh sent him this portrait of himself as a bonze – a Buddhist monk – or, as he put it, ‘in the Japanese manner’.
‘And now at last I have a chance to compare my painting with that of the pals. (…) And when I put Gauguin’s conception and mine side by side, my portrait is equally serious but less desperate.’
To his brother Theo from Arles, 4-5 October, 1888
Although each of these friends considered coming to Arles, in the end only Gauguin went – and then only when Vincent’s brother Theo promised to pay him some money. Gauguin got things properly organized straightaway. He cooked for the two of them and kept track of household expenditure.
‘So Gauguin’s coming; that will make a big change in your life. I hope that your efforts will succeed in making your house a place where artists will feel at home.’
Theo to Vincent from Paris, October 19, 1888
Vincent knew that Gauguin liked his paintings of sunflowers. In Paris he had swapped two small pictures of sunflowers for one of his friend’s paintings. Now, while waiting for Gauguin, he made a number of large sunflower paintings to decorate the Yellow House.
I’m thinking of decorating my studio with half a dozen paintings of Sunflowers. A decoration in which harsh or broken yellows will burst against various blue backgrounds, from the palest Veronese to royal blue, framed with thin laths painted in orange lead. Sorts of effects of stained-glass windows of a Gothic church.
To Émile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 21 August 1888
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888, Neue Pinakothek, Munich
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888, private collection
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888, National Gallery, London
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888, lost in WW II
The optimism about cooperation took shape in a twenty-metre roll of coarse jute that Gauguin bought shortly after he arrived. He and Vincent cut their canvases from it.
The collaboration developed into an artistic battle. Vincent and Gauguin differed about almost everything. Exchanges of views soon became heated.
Vincent increasingly sensed the threat of Gauguin’s departure. He was thinking about returning to the tropics…
‘He’s working on a portrait of me which I don’t count as one of his undertakings that don’t come to anything,’ wrote Vincent to his brother Theo about Gauguin. He was referring to this canvas, which shows him at work on a still life of sunflowers.
When the portrait was finished Vincent wrote: ‘My face has lit up after all a lot since, but it was indeed me, extremely tired and charged with electricity as I was then.’ - To his brother Theo from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 10 September 1889
Vincent painted this portrait of Gauguin on jute. Doubts have been raised as to whether this is a genuine Van Gogh because it was painted so strangely and coarsely. This is the effect of the material – jute is difficult to paint on. The jute came from the roll that Gauguin bought in Arles.
Gauguin and I talk a lot about Delacroix, Rembrandt &c. The discussion is excessively electric. We sometimes emerge from it with tired minds, like an electric battery after it’s run down.
To his brother Theo from Arles, 17 or 18 December 1888
Joseph Roulin, 1902
Bad weather forced Vincent and Gauguin to paint indoors, in the studio. Local people posed for them there, among them the family of Vincent’s friend, Roulin the postman.
‘…the man, his wife, the baby, the young boy and the 16-year-old son, all characters and very French, although they have a Russian look.’
When Vincent sent this portrait of Roulin’s baby daughter to his brother Theo, Theo’s wife Jo, who was pregnant, wrote: ’I like to imagine that ours will be as strong, as beautiful and as healthy as this – and that one day his uncle will want to make a portrait of him!’
La Berceuse, 1889, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Van Gogh painted Joseph Roulin’s wife, Augustine, several times – in this picture as a woman rocking a cradle. In the meantime there had been a drama in the Yellow House.
‘Gauguin, if he’ll accept it, you shall give him a version of the Berceuse (…) and to Bernard too, as a token of friendship.’
To his brother Theo from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, about 23 May, 1889
Vincent and Gauguin had a massive row just before Christmas. Vincent became very confused and injured himself, cutting off his left ear.
Gauguin left Arles two days later. Vincent, who had been admitted to hospital, never saw him again.
Many of the locals living in the neighbourhood signed a petition demanding that the artist should be committed to hospital, by force if need be, because he was wandering around in a confused state. In May Vincent voluntarily admitted himself to a psychiatric institution.
Vincent van Gogh, L'Arlésienne (portrait of Madame Ginoux), 1890. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
Madame (Marie) Ginoux proved a friend in difficult times. Before he rented the Yellow House, Vincent had a room above the Café de la Gare (The Night Café), which she ran with her husband. Vincent stored his possessions in their café when he admitted himself to the asylum in Saint-Rémy.
Vincent van Gogh, Le café de nuit (The Night Café), 1889. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
‘It’s still good that if necessary I can go and lodge in that night café here, and even board there, for those people are friends of mine – naturally also because I have been and am their customer.’
To his brotherTheo from Arles, 2 May 1889.
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1889. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
The railway postman Joseph Roulin was one of the few people who continued to support Vincent after the crisis.
‘My dear Mr Vincent, accept the regards of he who declares himself to be your entirely devoted friend’
Joseph Roulin to Vincent from Marseille, May 13, 1889
Petition in which Vincent’s neighbours ask the mayor to have the painter forcibly admitted to hospital
The best consolation, if not the only remedy, is, it still seems to me, profound friendships … Thank you again for your visit, which gave me so much pleasure. Good handshake in thought.
Yours truly,
Vincent
To Paul Signac from Arles, 10 April, 1889
In May 1890 Vincent left the asylum in the South of France and went to Auvers-sur-Oise, close to Paris and Theo. There he found ‘a true friend’ in Doctor Gachet.
But at the end of July Vincent shot himself in the chest. He died two days later with Theo, his brother and best friend, at his side. His funeral was attended by some twenty artist friends and acquaintances.
‘The following morning eight friends came from Paris and elsewhere, and they decorated the room where the coffin stood with his paintings, which looked so beautiful. There were many bouquets and wreaths. Dr Gachet was the first; he brought a large bouquet of sunflowers because he loved them so much...’ - Jo Van Gogh-Bonger in Letters to his brother, 1914
Vincents Pietà was one of the canvases that hung in the room where the coffin was on view.
Painting of the place where Van Gogh shot himself, by Paul Gachet Jr., Musée Camille Pissarro, Pontoise
Bernard described Vincent’s funeral in a letter to the art critic Albert Aurier. He urged Aurier to write about him, ‘so that everyone knows that his funeral was an apotheosis that was certainly worthy of his great spirit and great talent’.
Our dear friend Vincent died four days ago. He finally died on Monday evening, still smoking his pipe which he refused to let go of, explaining that his suicide had been absolutely deliberate and that he had done it in complete lucidity. You know how much I loved him and you can imagine how much I wept.
Émile Bernard to Albert Aurier, August 2, 1890
‘Although Vincent and I were separated from each other during the last few years as a result of a misunderstanding, which I often regret, I have nevertheless thought about him and our dealings together with nothing other than very great friendship.
Anthon van Rappard to Anna Van Gogh-Carbentus (Vincent's mother), 1890
