Letters of Vincent with Théo

Vincent van Gogh maintained during 18 years a correspondence with his/her brother Théo (Theodore). These letters have an essential importance in the life and the creation of the painter. This form of self-analysis enabled him to continue to create despite everything its material and personal difficulties.

Importance of its letters to his/her brother

Vincent van Gogh draws her genius from an exceptional personality. Generous, sensitive and lucid with the extreme. But also, tormented and prone to crises, consequence of a difficult life and rejection of its family. Its letters with his/her Théo brother are an analysis, with the psychoanalytical direction, of a whole life.

Their range is universal. They tell the search of a heart generous which, all its life, seeks the love, that of his/her parents and the women whom he loves, without success, but which builds a strong relation with his/her brother, around their common passion. These letters show the difficulties of a creator, charnellement devoted to his work. Day after day, Vincent fights to survive and to paint, paupers of alive sound, these tables do not have a price today.

This correspondence is spread out over 18 years, Vincent starts to write at 19 years, and recalls an intense relation and tragedy between two brothers. Love with the life and death. Théo, its four year old junior, carries it from beginning to end. Tortured to be such a burden for his/her brother, Vincent commits suicide, it does not support it more. Théo survives to him only six months. History of an impossible love between two brothers. Théo, the merchant of tables of the impressionists, seeking little in truth to sell the fabrics of his/her brother. Risks of a fusional relation.

The words of Vincent are simple. They start from its heart and are intended for that of Théo. As in its tables, express themselves at the same time, its sensitivity, its passion, its mixture of conviction, force and audacity.

Vincent is thirsty for love. Of alive sound, he knows only that of Théo. The reading of its letters to his/her Théo brother can on a purely posthumous basis give him that of the public.

Self-analysis of Vincent

Vincent makes his analysis thanks to his exchanges with his Théo brother. In this field also, it is precursory, Freud is not yet known.

Vincent has a glance. Unceasingly, it is analyzed and seeks to be included/understood, like it does it in its work. He suffers from a lack of love, his family, the women. To fight its melancholy, it is put initially with passion at the service of God and people of Coal-mining, mine field of Belgium, then it is thrown to body lost in painting. It leaves its life there, without regret nor bitterness, with the feeling of the accomplished duty.

Cost what costs, it wants to go at the end of its course of painter, it must hold, to spare themselves, last. It is an acute aware of it, it knows, it is to it him, the craftsman who holds the brushes, then it must be in full possession of its means. Mission accomplished. In its last two months in Auvers-sur-Oise, it produces practically a fabric per day, among today most required.

Extract 1,1882

Say to me, my old man, if you intend to come one day next at home, in our house which is full with life and activity and, you know it well, you are the founder. Won't this spectacle get more satisfaction than to know me unmarried carrying out a life of coffee? Would you like that it is differently? You know that I was not always happy, that I carried out a rather miserable existence. Here that, thanks to your assistance, my youth and my major nature can finally appear. …

will not appear you that I regard myself as perfect, nor that I think without reproach when so many people speak about my impossible nature. It often sometimes happens to me to be melancholic person, likely and intractable; to sigh after sympathy as if I were hungry and thirst; to show me indifferent and malicious when me am refused this sympathy, and to even pour sometimes oil on fire. I do not like much the company of the others, it is often painful or unbearable for me to attend them or chatter with people. But do you know the origin of all that, at least mainly? Quite simply my nervousness; I am extremely sensitive, as much with the physique that with the moral one, and that goes back to my black years. Thus ask the doctor - it will include/understand immediately what it acts - if it could be about it differently, if nights spent in the cold streets, with open air, if fear of not having to eat a piece of bread, if the ceaseless tension resulting owing to the fact that I did not have a situation, if all my troubles with the friends and the family are not for three quarters at the origin of certain features of my character, of my and my period sudden changes of mood of depression.

clearness and accuracy of the analysis… he would have liked to find around him a little love… him which has some to give so much…

I hope that neither you, neither those which would like to try hard to reflect, you will condemn me nor will not consider me impossible. I fight against this tendency, but without succeeding in changing my character. I have my bad sides, of course, but I have of them as goods, as devil! Couldn't one also hold account of it?

Extract 2 1882

You speak in your letter about the doubt which you étreint sometimes to know if one is responsible for the annoying consequences of a good deed, and you requests if it would not be better than anybody do not know anything of it, in order to be able to draw some without tear. Me also, I know this doubt. … All the time that I work, I have a confidence unlimited in art and my success, but as soon as I am overworked physically or with the catches with difficulties of money, I less intensely test this faith and I find myself in prey with a doubt that I try to overcome by replongeant me derechef in work. The same applies to my wife and the children: when I am near them and that the small one approaches me while crawling with four legs and by pushing cries of joy, I am certain that all is well in its place. This small boy already alleviated me more once. Once I am at the house, it is not possible to draw aside it from me; when I work, it comes to draw me by the jacket, or it rises along my legs until I deposit it on my knees; he has fun in silence with a bit of paper, a piece of string or an old brush; this child is always of good mood, it will be stronger than me that is continued.

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