Letter 18, page 1
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 3 October 1888, Letter 18, page 1
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
My dear old Bernard,
This time you deserve bigger compliments for the little sketch of the two Breton women in your
letter than for the other six, since the little sketch has a great style. I'm behind myself as far as
sketches go, being so totally absorbed these recent superb days with square no. 30 canvases, which
wear me out considerably and I intend to use to decorate the house.
You will have received my letter explaining the serious reasons for advising you to try to
persuade your father to give you a little more freedom as far as your purse is concerned, should
he pay your fare to Arles. I believe that you would repay him through your work. And that way you
would stay longer with Gauguin, and leaving to do your service, you would leave for a good artistic
campaign. If your father had a son who was a prospector and discoverer of raw gold among the
pebbles and on the pavement, your father would certainly not look down on that talent. Now in
my opinion, you have absolutely the equivalent of that.
Your father, while he might regret that it wasn't shiny new gold, minted in louis, would set
out to make a collection of your finds, and to sell them only for a reasonable price. Let him do the
same thing for your paintings and drawings, which are as rare and as valuable on the market as rare
stones or rare metal. That's absolutely true—a painting is as difficult to make as a large or small
diamond is to find.
Now while everyone acknowledges the value of a gold louis or a real pearl, unfortunately those
who set store by paintings and believe in them are few and far between. But they do exist. And in
any case, there's nothing better to do than to wait without getting impatient, even if one has to wait
for a long time. On your side, think a little about what I'm telling you about the cost of living here,
and should you have a strong wish to come to Arles with Gauguin and me,
© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Letter 18, page 2
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 3 October 1888, Letter 18, page 2
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
(Continued from page 1)
be sure to tell your
father that with a little more money you would make much better paintings.
The idea of making a kind of freemasonry of painters does not please me hugely; I deeply
despise rules, institutions, etc. In short, I'm looking for something other than dogmas, which, very
far from settling things, only cause endless disputes.
It's a sign of decadence. Now, as a union of painters exists so far only in the form of a vague
but very broad sketch, then let's calmly allow what must happen to happen.
It will be better if it crystallizes naturally; the more one talks about it, the less it comes about.
If you wish to support it, you have only to continue with Gauguin and me. It's in progress, let's not
talk any more; if it must come it will come about without big negotiations but through calm and
well-thought-out actions.
As regards the exchanges, it's precisely because I have often had occasion to hear mention in
your letters of Laval, Moret and the other young man, that I have a great desire to get to know
them. But—I don't have five dry studies—will have to add at least two slightly more serious
attempts at paintings, a portrait of myself and a landscape angry with a nasty mistral.
Then I would have a study of a little garden of multicolored flowers.
A study of gray and dusty thistles,
© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Letter 18, page 3
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 3 October 1888, Letter 18, page 3
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
and lastly a still life of old peasants' shoes. And a small
landscape of nothing at all, in which there's nothing but a bit of an expanse. Now, if these studies
aren't found pleasing, and if one or other preferred not to take part, all you have to do is keep those
that are wanted and return with the exchanges those that aren't wanted. We're in no hurry, and in
exchanges it's better on both sides to try to give something good.
If it's dry enough to be rolled up after being exposed to the sun tomorrow, I'll add a landscape
of men unloading sand, another project and attempt at a painting, in which there is a more fully
developed sense of purpose.
I cannot send a repetition of the night café yet because it hasn't even been started, but I'm very
willing to do it for you, but once again, it's better on both sides to try to exchange good things
than to do them too hastily.
The artistic gentleman who was in your letter, who resembles me—is that me or somebody else?
He certainly looks like me as far as the face is concerned, but in the first place I'm always smoking
a pipe, and then, having vertigo, I have an unspeakable horror of sitting like that on sheer crags
beside the sea. So if that's meant to be my portrait, I protest against the above-mentioned improbabilities.
© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Letter 18, page 4
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 3 October 1888, Letter 18, page 4
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
The decoration of the house absorbs me terribly. I dare to believe that it would be quite
to your liking, although it's very different from what you do, of course. But just as you spoke to me
in the past about paintings that would depict, one flowers, the other trees, the other fields.
Well, I have the Poet's Garden (2 canvases); (among the sketches you have the first idea for it,
after a smaller painted study that's already at my brother's).
Then The Starry Night, then The Vineyard, then The Furrows, then the view of the house
could be called The Street, so unintentionally there's a certain sequence.
Well, I'll be very very curious to see studies of Pont-Aven. But for yourself, give me something
fairly worked up. It will work out, anyway, because I like your talent so much that I'd be very
pleased to make a small collection of your works, bit by bit.
For a long time I have been touched by the fact that Japanese artists very often made exchanges
among themselves. It clearly proves that they liked one another and stuck together, and that there
was a certain harmony among them and that they did indeed live in a kind of brotherly life, in a
natural way and not in the midst of intrigues. The more we resemble them in that respect, the better
it will be for us. It seems also that those Japanese earned very little money and lived like simple
laborers. 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. I shake your hand firmly.
Ever yours,
Vincent
© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam