Of all literary genres, I like letters the most. They are sincere and direct, and reveal all the nuances of a person's personality in a deep and subtle way.
When I accidentally came across a book of Vincent van Gogh's letters on the internet, I was surprised and intrigued.
And as it turned out, for good reason.
Many people know Vincent Van Gogh as a brilliant artist, one of the best of all time. But despite his artistic talent and phenomenal work ethic, Van Gogh found time to write, and he wrote well.
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Most of them were letters to his younger brother Theo, whom he had not seen for years. Their correspondence lasted for almost fifteen years, during which time Vincent wrote about 650 letters to his brother. These were not diaries or philosophical treatises, but letters — a form in which he found natural freedom for his words.
What does Van Gogh write about in his letters?
Most often, he expresses his immense gratitude to his younger brother, who for eight years practically supported the then unknown artist, providing him with money for living expenses, for buying paints, brushes, and everything else necessary for his creative work. Vincent wrote to Theo about everything — his thoughts, experiences, inspiration, poverty, illnesses, disappointments, and loneliness. He described some of his paintings in detail, including their colors and composition, and drew sketches of future works.
Being a genius at mixing all the richness of paints, colors, and shades, he conveys feelings through words that are inaccessible to paints.
"There are people, especially among our friends, who imagine that words are nothing. On the contrary, don't you think that clearly expressing a thought in words is no less interesting and difficult than expressing it in a drawing? Do you know that ‘painting with words’ is also an art, and it can indicate that a secret power lies dormant within you, just as a light cloud of bluish or grayish smoke indicates a fire in the hearth?"
The letters reveal Van Gogh's personality not only as an artist, but also as a person with a rich and complex inner world, with deep inner passions and contradictions. Reading his lines, I felt as if I could hear him constantly teetering on the edge: between despair and hope, loneliness and a thirst for communication, pain and delight in the beauty of the world. He seems tired, sick, doubtful — and at the same time, there is a flame burning inside him that cannot be extinguished by struggle, poverty, or loneliness.
"Sometimes I don't have money for food, but I have paints. Better to have a hungry stomach than an empty soul."
As a writer, Van Gogh skillfully combines the simple and the sublime. He describes in detail the colors of an autumn field or the light of a lamp in a village house, and then, in the same letter, moves on to profound reflections on the Bible, the artist's calling, and human destiny.
Reading him, at times I felt inspired and energized, but at other times I felt melancholy, sad, and disappointed.
What surprised me?
I was surprised that Vincent talks a lot about God and faith, often quoting the Bible.
He also writes a lot about love. About love for life and art: “One must love — love as much as possible, for in love lies true strength, and those who love much do much and are capable of much, and what is done with love is done well.”
Impulsive, eccentric, but with a keen sense of the world, he felt that he was part of something great and eternal. And he knew that his art would be highly valued, but not now, but later.
But this did not prevent him, at the same time, from modestly acknowledging his imperfection. Speaking about his painting “Starry Night,” recognized as priceless, he said that it should serve as an example to other artists of how not to paint.
Van Gogh's letters helped me change my perception of him as a lonely madman and see in all his glory the soul of a man experiencing all the passions, doubts, pain, fears, and disappointments, but filled with kindness and love for people and the world.
In these letters, he is not a genius, not a madman, not a legend, but just an ordinary person who needs someone close to him to endure life.
"What am I in the eyes of most people? A zero, an eccentric, an unpleasant person, someone who has no position in society and never will — in short, a nobody among nobodies. I want to show through my work what lies in the heart of this eccentric, this nobody.”
I grieve over Vincent's tragic fate, I regret the blatant injustice of the world, which has destined the kindest, most responsive, most hardworking, and most gifted person in the world to be an outcast. He left so early, but left so much behind.