Vincent Van Gogh tells his story in the Borinage (1878-1880)

28 août 2023

Vincent tells the Borinage

Vincent Van Gogh came to the Borinage at the age of 25 to be an evangelist among the miners population in this industrial coal mining area. Two years later, in October 1880, he left the region again with the intention to become an artist.

Discover what Vincent did, saw and experienced in the Borinage though his own letters to his brother Theo, his drawings and a selection of old pictures.

My Dear Theo,

In the south of Belgium, in Hainaut, from around the area of Mons to the French borders and even extending far beyond them, there is a region called the Borinage, where there is one of those populations of labourers who work in the many coal-mines. I found this and other things about them in a geography book:

“The Borins (people who live in the Borinage, an area west of Mons) do nothing but mine coal. They’re an impressive sight, these coal-mines, opened up 300 metres underground, down which a working population worthy of our respect and sympathy descends every day. The coal-miner is a type peculiar to the Borinage; daylight hardly exists for him, and he scarcely enjoys the sun’s rays except on Sunday. He works with great difficulty by the light of a lamp whose illumination is pale and feeble, in a narrow gallery, his body bent double, and sometimes forced to crawl; his work is to pull from the earth’s entrails this mineral substance whose great usefulness we know, he thus works in the midst of a thousand constantly recurring dangers, but the Belgian foreman has a cheerful character, he’s used to this way of life, and when he goes down the pit, his hat topped with a little lamp whose job is to guide him in the darkness, he entrusts himself to his God Who sees his labours and Who protects him, his wife and his children. His clothing consists of a hat of boiled leather, a jacket and a pair of canvas trousers. “

So the Borinage lies to the south of Lessines, where one finds the stone-quarries.

I should like to go there as an evangelist...

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Laken, on or about Wednesday, 13 and Friday, 15 or Saturday, 16 November 1878.

The map shows the coal mining regions in Belgium. The country is surrounded by the North Sea (West), The Netherlands (North), Germany and Luxeumburg (East) and France (South). The last belgian coal mine was closed in the 1980s.

Vincent’s arrival in the Borinage (December 1878)

"Mr. President made known the job application of Mr. Van Gogh, son of a pastor from Holland who came to the Borinage with the aim of working there. It results from what Mr. Pieterszen and Mr. Péron say that this pious young man, devoted hard to work, would make a good reader of the Bible and would work usefully in this capacity, in Wasmes and Warquignies. Mr. Péron proposes to employ him in this way with the sober salary of 600 francs. We will make a trial of 6 months'".

Pastor Bonte was one of the first people to have met Vincent Van Gogh at Pâturages. Here is his testimony:

"I remember his arrival at Pâturages; he was a young blond man, of average size, with a pleasant figure; he was very well dressed, had good manners and carried all the characteristics of Dutch cleanliness on his person. He expressed himself correctly in French and was able to speak quite well in the religious meetings of the small Protestant group of Wasmes for which he was destined.

(Source : www.vangoghletters.org, letter 149 - notes)

Vincent Van Gogh will first live with the peddler Van der Haegen, rue de l'Eglise, 39, in Pâturages. This house was demolished during the widening of the street.

(Source : Le Borinage minier raconté, André Auquier).

Images : railway station of Pâturages, built around 1870. The building still exists today, but the railway was transformed into a bicycle road.

My Dear Theo,

As far as I’m concerned, you surely understand that there are no paintings here in the Borinage, that in general they haven’t the slightest idea of what a painting is, so it goes without saying that I’ve seen absolutely nothing in the way of art since my departure from Brussels. But this doesn’t mean that this isn’t a very special and very picturesque country, everything speaks, as it were, and is full of character.

Your most loving brother

Vincent

Vincent to Theo Van Gogh, Petit-Wasmes, 26 Dec. 1878

Borinage Hainaut

Images : Rue de l’Eglise

My Dear Theo,

…These last few days, for instance, it was an extraordinary sight, with the white snow in the evening around the twilight hour, seeing the workers returning home from the mines. These people are completely black when they come out of the dark mines into the daylight again, they look just like chimney-sweeps. Their houses are usually small and could better be called huts, scattered along the sunken roads and in the wood and against the slopes of the hills. One sees moss-covered roofs here and there, and the light shines kindly in the evening through the small-paned windows.

Vincent

Vincent to Theo Van Gogh,

Petit-Wasmes, 26 Dec. 1878

Borinage Hainaut

Image : Miners in the snow at dawn, Vincent Van Gogh 1880

My Dear Theo,

…I’ve already spoken here at various times, both in a fairly large room, specially furnished for religious meetings, and in the gatherings that are customarily held in the workers’ houses in the evenings, which one can best call Bible-reading. Spoke, among other things, on: the parable of the mustard seed, the barren fig tree, the man who was blind from his birth. On Christmas, of course, on the stable of Bethlehem, and Peace on earth.

May it come to pass with God’s blessing that I be placed here permanently somewhere; I should sincerely wish it…

Your loving brother,

Vincent

Vincent Van Gogh to Theo

Petit-Wasmes, 26 Dec. 1878

Borinage Hainaut

Images : Wasmes, Marcourt

My Der Theo,

...It thawed last night, I cannot tell you how picturesque the hilly countryside looks in the thaw, now that the snow is melting and the black fields with the green of the winter wheat are again becoming visible. For foreigners the villages here are truly a maze, with countless narrow streets and alleyways with the small houses of the workers, at the foot of the hills as well as on their slopes and at the top. It can best be compared to a village like Scheveningen, especially the poor quarters, or to those villages in Brittany that we know from paintings. For that matter, you rode through this region yourself on the railway journey to and from Paris, and maybe remember it a little...

Your loving brother,

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, Thursday, 26 December 1878.

Image : Panorama of Wasmes, Borinage

My dear Theo,

I heard from Pa and Ma that they were recently surprised by a visit from you, just when Pa had returned from here. I’m very glad that Pa was here. Together we visited the 3 ministers of the Borinage and walked through the snow and visited a miner’s family and saw coal being hauled up from a mine called Les trois Diefs (the three heaps of earth) and Pa attended two Bible readings, so we did a great deal in those couple of days. I believe that Pa received an impression of the Borinage that he won’t easily forget, as it would be with anyone who visited this singular, remarkable and picturesque region of the country.

It’s been a long time since I wrote to you. If, with God’s blessing, I succeed in getting settled here, then you must come here sometime, perhaps when you have to go to Paris again, or tying it in with a business trip.

I recently found in the house of an elderly man who had worked in the mines for many years a list of all the seams of coal south of Mons, which are 155 in number. The country and the people here appeal to me more each day, one has here a familiar feeling as though on the heath or in the dunes, there’s something simple and kind-hearted about the people. Those who have left here are homesick for their country, just as, conversely, foreigners who are homesick may come to feel at home here.

Adieu, a handshake in thought, and believe me ever

Your loving brother,

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, between Tuesday, 4 and Monday, 31 March 1879.

Image : drawing of old coal mine exploitation in the Borinage

My Dear Theo,

...Lately made the acquaintance of someone who supervised the workers for years. Is of humble origins but worked his way up. Now he has a chest complaint, quite serious, and can no longer stand the terribly exhausting work down in the mine. It’s very important to hear him talk about the subject. He has always remained the workmen’s friend (in contrast to many others who worked their way up, not because of true distinction but because of money, driven by motives less noble and many times more base). He has a labourer’s heart, true and honest and courageous, but is far above most of them as regards intellectual development.

On more than one occasion during a strike, he was the only person who could exert any influence on the workers.

They would hear no one, they would listen to no one but him, and at the critical moment no one was obeyed but him alone. When I met him for the first time, I thought of the etching after Meissonier, with which you are familiar, The reader...

Your loving brother

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, on or about Thursday, 19 June 1879.

Photo : Norbert Ghisoland, Frameries

My Dear Theo,

...The villages here have something forsaken and still and extinct about them, because life goes on underground instead of above. One could be here for years, but unless one has been down in the mines one has no clear picture of what goes on here.

The people here are very uneducated and ignorant, and most of them can’t read, yet they’re shrewd and nimble in their difficult work, courageous, of rather small build but square-shouldered, with sombre, deep-set eyes. They’re skilled at many things and work amazingly hard. Very nervous dispositions, I mean not weak but sensitive. Have a festering and deep-rooted hatred and an innate distrust of anyone who tries to boss them around. With charcoal-burners one must have a charcoal-burner’s nature and character, and no pretensions, pridefulness or imperiousness, otherwise one can’t get on with them and could never win their trust...

Your loving brother,

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April 1879.

Image : Wasmes – Panoramic view from the Pachy slag heap (Terril du Pachy)

"Our young man took his lodging in a farm in Petit-Wasmes; this house was relatively beautiful; it distinguished itself in a very sensitive way from the surroundings, where one saw then only small houses of miners".

"The family that housed Vincent Van Gogh had simple habits and lived like the workers. But with respect to his house, our evangelist quickly showed, the particular feelings that possessed him, he found that his dwelling was too luxurious; this shocked his Christian humility, he could not bear to be sheltered in a way so different from that of the miners. He then left those people who surrounded him with sympathy and went to live in a small hut. He had no furniture and it was said that he slept in the corner of the hearth. »

(Extract from the letter of Pastor Bonte to Louis Piérard - Source : La vie tragique de Van Gogh, Louis Piérard - 1925)

My Dear Theo,

…Have rented a small house where I’d really like to live entirely on my own, but which now serves only as a workplace or study, because Pa thinks it better that I board with Denis, and I do too. I have prints on the wall there and all sorts of things.

I have to go out and visit the sick as well as the healthy. Write soon, and I wish you the very best…

Adieu, a handshake in thought, and believe me ever

Your loving brother

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, between Tuesday, 4 and Monday, 31 March 1879.

"It was on a beautiful spring day when I saw our young friend Vincent Van Gogh arrive, richly dressed, and our eyes never ceased to contemplate him. The next day, he visited with Pastor M. Bonte. As soon as he was put back into the working class, our friend fell into the greatest humiliation where he soon stripped himself of all his clothes. Thus, when he had no more shirts, no more socks on his feet, we saw him making shirts from packaging material. I was too young then. My tender mother said to him: "Monsieurr Vincent, why do you strip yourself of your clothes like that? And you are from such a noble Dutch pastor’s family". He answered: "I am a friend of the poor, as was the Lord Jesus". She answered: "You are no longer in normal conditions".

(Extract from the letter of Jean Denis , son of Jeazn-Baptiste and Estelle, to Louis Piérard- Source : Vie tragique de Vincent Van Gogh, Louis Piérard – 1925)

Visit of Elisabeth Van Gogh (Vincent's sister) in 1925

Van Gogh House in 2010, before renovation works

Van gOGH hOUSE AFTER RENOVATION IN 2015

Photos : the house of Jean-Baptiste Denis and Estelle Fievez in Petit-Wasmes, where Vincent boarded in Spring 1879. The house was renovated in 2015 to become the “Maison Van Gogh”, a small visitor’s centre and souvenir shop.

My Dear Theo,

...Did I tell you at the time about the miner who was badly burned by a gas explosion? Thank God he has now recovered and goes out and about and is beginning to take long walks as practice, his hands are still weak and it will be some time before he’s able to use them for his work, yet he has been saved. But since then there have been quite a few cases of typhus and virulent fever, including what is known as ‘foolish fever’, which causes one to have bad dreams such as nightmares and delirium. So there are again many sickly and bedridden people, lying emaciated on their beds, weak and miserable.

In one house everyone is sick with fever, and they have little or no help, which means that there the sick are taking care of the sick. ‘Here it is the sick who nurse the sick,’ said the woman, just as it is the poor who befriend the poor.

Have you seen anything beautiful recently? I’m eagerly longing for a letter from you.

Has Israëls been working a lot lately, and Maris and Mauve?

A couple of nights ago a foal was born in the stable here, a nice small creature that was quick to stand firmly on its feet. The workers keep a lot of goats here, and there are young ones in the houses everywhere, just like the rabbits commonly to be found in the workers’ houses.

Must go out and visit the sick, so have to finish now, let me hear from you soon, to give a sign of life, should you have the time.

Give my regards to your housemates, and to Mauve when you get the chance, I wish you the very best, and believe me ever, with a handshake in thought,

Your loving brother

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April 1879.

"... That same year, an explosion of firedamp occurred at the No. 1 shaft of the Belgian Coal Mine where several workers were burned. Our friend Vincent had no rest: day and night cutting up the rest of his laundry, to make large strips with wax and olive oil, to run to the burned victims of the disaster ...".

(Extract from the letter of Jean Denis to Louis Piérard)
(Source : Vie tragique de Vincent Van Gogh, Louis Piérard - 1925)

“The great danger of collapse was tragically demonstrated when many people lost their lives in the accident that occurred on 17 April in the Agrappe coal mine at Frameries, just east of Wasmes. Mr. Van Gogh wrote to Theo about it on 23 April: ‘We received a letter from Vincent to you and one for us. I copied ours out for you. It is indeed moving, that terrible accident. And I just read in the newspaper that it was followed by a strike. I hope that that won’t create any difficulties for Vincent. What a situation for those people to be in – buried alive like that and almost no hope of being rescued in time. It does appear from Vincent’s letters that, despite all the eccentricity that is his nature, he takes a true interest in the unfortunate, and that, too, will surely be noticed by God.”

(Source : www.vangoghletters.org, letter 151, note 3)

image : press article about the firedamp explosion in the Agrappe mine

in Frameries on April 17, 1879.

Agrappe coal mine in Frameries

My dear Theo,

…I went on a very interesting excursion not long ago; the fact is, I spent 6 hours in a mine.

In one of the oldest and most dangerous mines in the area no less, called Marcasse. This mine has a bad name because many die in it, whether going down or coming up, or by suffocation or gas exploding, or because of water in the ground, or because of old passageways caving in and so on. It’s a sombre place, and at first sight everything around it has something dismal and deathly about it. The workers there are usually people, emaciated and pale owing to fever, who look exhausted and haggard, weather-beaten and prematurely old, the women generally sallow and withered. All around the mine are poor miners’ dwellings with a couple of dead trees, completely black from the smoke, and thorn-hedges, dung-heaps and rubbish dumps, mountains of unusable coal &c. Maris would make a beautiful painting of it.

Later I’ll try and make a sketch of it to give you an idea of it…

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April 1879.

Image : old postcard of the Marcasse coal mine, Wasmes, Borinage

My Dear Theo,

…Had a good guide, a man who has already worked there for 33 years, a friendly and patient man who explained everything clearly and tried to make it understandable.

We went down together, 700 metres deep this time, and went into the most hidden corners of that underworld.

The arrangement is more or less like the cells in a beehive, or like a dark, sombre passageway in an underground prison, or like a series of small looms, or actually they look like a row of ovens such as one sees among the peasants, or like the separate tombs in a vault. The passageways themselves are like the large chimneys of the Brabant farmsteads.

In some, water leaks in everywhere and the light of the miner’s lamp creates a peculiar effect and reflects as in a cave full of stalactites. Some of the miners work in the maintenages, others load the loosened coal into small wagons that are transported along rails resembling a tramway. It’s mostly children who do this, both boys and girls. There’s also a stable there, 700 metres below ground, with around 7 old horses that transport larger amounts, bringing them to the so-called accrochage, that being the place where they’re hauled up. Other workers are busy restoring the antiquated passageways to prevent them from caving in, or are making new passageways in the coal seam. Just as sailors on land are homesick for the sea, despite all the dangers and difficulties that threaten them, so the mine-worker would rather be below ground than above...

Vincent To Theo van Gogh. Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April 1879.

Photo : Norbert Ghisoland, Frameries,Borinage .

"So, Vincent Van Gogh came to preach the gospel. So he beleved and had the desire to share the gospel? But what did you hear about him from your grandparents?”
“Ah, to them, Monsieur Vincent was an angel ! They said: "He is an angel sent to us by the Lord." Because, the image they had of a pastor, or what was called a "pastor", was a person with a white shirt, top hat and frock coat.... And Monsieur Vincent was, so to speak, equal to the workers. He was dressed as the workers. And with his Dutch accent, he lived so close to them. So close to them ..., This greatly affected them because they felt that he was a true brother. There was no distance. They felt really understood. They spoke of him.... and they always said, "Monsieur Vincent was an angel!”.

“And how did the angel Vincent Van Gogh show his faith as an evangelist in your area ? And did he express the interest he had for his new parishioners in a practical way ?”
“Listen. I cannot say too much about his faith, since I was young at that time. But as far as the practical point is concerned, I can tell you that my grandmother and other wives of coal miners searched for coal on the slag heaps. Monsieur Vincent was with them and helped to snatch coal on the heaps, and loaded it up. If one of the ladies was pregnant, he took the load and carried it to her home so she did not get too tired.”

« But tell me; later it was recognized that Vincent Van Gogh, who was an evangelist, became a great painter. When your grandparents were talking to you about him, was there something at that time that could define the fact that he would become a painter ?”

“Well,, he lived with a cousin of my grandmother, Monsieur Denis. In the evening, as my grandmother used to say, he had large sheets of paper on which he drew little men with a piece of wood he took from the fireplace,a bit like charcoal. And in the morning, the cousin’s wife rolled up these papers to light the fire in the fireplace.”

“Oh Dear, and the next night it started all over again, I suppose ?”
“Every night ! Every night, he drew the little chaps.”

“He drew these men, his drawings,in order for being the great artist he would be one day.”
“And he made it. And he suffered so much though.”

Extracts of a radio interview of Mrs. Victorine Châlet

« Foi sans frontières »

Média Communication Evangélique, Neufchâtel, Switzerland

Presented by Alain Normand

(1990)

Image : Cover of “Van Gogh chez les gueules noires” by Pierre Secrétan-Rollier

My Dear Theo,

…Going down in a mine is an unpleasant business, in a kind of basket or cage like a bucket in a well, but then a well 500-700 metres deep, so that down there, looking upward, the daylight appears to be about as big as a star in the sky. One has a feeling similar to one’s first time on a ship at sea, but worse, though fortunately it doesn’t last long. The workers get used to it, but even so, they never shake off an unconquerable feeling of horror and dread that stays with them, not without reason or unjustifiably. Once down there, however, it isn’t so bad, and the effort is richly rewarded by what one sees…

Address

Vincent van Gogh

c/o Jean-Baptiste Denis

rue du Petit-Wasmes

Wasmes (Borinage, Hainaut)

Your loving brother

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April

1879.

Photo : postcard of the Marcasse coal mine

My dear Theo,

We had a terrible storm here a couple of days ago, around 11 o’clock in the evening. There’s a place nearby where one can see in the distance, below, a large part of the Borinage, with the chimneys, mountains of coal, small workers’ houses, small black figures moving about during the day as though in an ants’ nest, in the far distance dark fir woods with small white workers’ houses in front of them, a couple of little towers in the distance, an old mill &c. Usually a sort of fog hangs over it, or else there’s the fanciful effect of light and shade owing to the shadows of clouds that remind one of paintings by Rembrandt or Michel or Ruisdael. But on the occasion of that storm in the pitch-black night, it was a special effect caused by the flashes of lightning that made everything visible just for a moment now and then. Nearby, the large, sombre buildings of the Marcasse mine, standing alone and set apart on the flat field, which that night, during the violent rains, truly reminded one of the hulk of Noah’s ark, as it would have appeared in the darkness of the Flood by the light of a lightning flash. Inspired by the impression made by that storm, I included a description of a shipwreck in the Bible reading this evening…

Your loving brother,

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, on or about Thursday, 19 June 1879.

Jean-Baptiste Denis relates :

"On a very hot day, a violent storm was unleashed on our region. What did our friend do? He went out into the open field to look at the great wonders of God, and so came back wet to the bone.

(Verzamelde brieven, 1973, vol. 1, p. 226. - Source : http://www.vangoghletters.org - notes

Image : Postcard of the Marcasse coal mine and slag heap

"The trial that was made by accepting the services of a young Dutchman, Mr. Vincent Van Gogh, who thought he was called to evangelize in the Borinage, did not give the results that were expected. If the admirable qualities that he displayed to the sick and wounded, the devotion and spirit of sacrifice that he demonstrated by devoting his vigils to them and by stripping himself of the best part of his clothes and linen for them, had been joined by the gift of the word, indispensable to anyone placed at the head of a congregation, Mr. Van Gogh would certainly have been an accomplished evangelist. No doubt it would be unreasonable to demand extraordinary talents. But it is constant that the absence of certain qualities can make the exercise of the principal function of the evangelist quite defective. This was unfortunately the case with Mr. Van Gogh. So when the trial period expired, the idea of keeping him longer had to be abandoned.

(Source : 23rd report of the Comité synodal d’évangélisation 1879-1880. Etterbeek-
Brussels 1880, pp. 17-18 (Union des églises protestantes de Belgique). Extract printed in
the « Verzamelde brieven » 1973, vol.1, pp. 227-228.

In the memoirs of the Protestant Church of Petit-Wasmes, the chronicler Antoine Denis noted that Van Gogh "...lost his mind (and) became ... a burden".

My dear Theo,

I’m writing to you in haste. Won’t you be going to Paris quite soon now? If so, write and tell me which day and what time, and in all likelihood I’ll see you at the station. If you have time to stay here for a day, or longer or shorter, I sincerely wish that this could happen.

Would be able to show you some drawings, types from here, not that they alone make it worth your while to get off the train, but here you would easily find something that appeals to you in the scenery and in the singularity of everything, for there’s so much picturesque character in everything in this region.

Am at the following address at the moment

Mr Francq. Evangelist in CUESMES (at Marais, near Mons).

Yours truly,

Vincent

Image : Coke factory in the Borinage – Vincent Van Gogh 1879. – watercolor

The following links will show you how the exact location of Vincent’s drawing was discovered : http://vangoghborinage.canalblog.com/archives/2012/08/27/24930835.html

And the different maps, paintings and photographs that ed to the diszcovery : http://vangoghborinage.canalblog.com/albums/aquarelle_flenu___flenu_aquarel___flenu_watercolour__1879_/index.html

My dear Theo,

It’s mainly to tell you that I’m grateful for your visit that I’m writing to you. It was quite a long time ago that we saw each other or wrote to each other as we used to. All the same, it’s better that we feel something for each other rather than behave like corpses towards one another, the more so because as long as one has no real right to be called a corpse by being legally dead, it smacks of hypocrisy or at least childishness to pose as such. Childish in the manner of a young man of 14 years who thinks that his dignity and social standing actually oblige him to wear a top hat. The hours we spent together in this way have at least assured us that we’re both still in the land of the living. When I saw you again and took a walk with you, I had the same feeling I used to have more than I do now, as though life were something good and precious that one should cherish, and I felt more cheerful and alive than I had been for a long time, because in spite of myself life has gradually become or has seemed much less precious to me, much more unimportant and indifferent. When one lives with others and is bound by a feeling of affection one is aware that one has a reason for being, that one might not be entirely worthless and superfluous but perhaps good for one thing or another, considering that we need one another and are making the same journey as travelling companions. Proper self-respect, however, is also very dependent on relations with others.

A prisoner who’s kept in isolation, who’s prevented from working &c., would in the long run, especially if this were to last too long, suffer the consequences just as surely as one who went hungry for too long. 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, so that I can’t do without them without perceiving an emptiness and feeling their lack, like any other generally civilized and highly respectable man — and I tell you these things to let you know what a salutary effect your visit had on me.

à Dieu, ontvang in gedachten een handdruk en geloof mij

Yours truly

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Monday, 11 and Thursday, 14 August 1879.

Image : Cuesmes – panoramic view of the village

My Dear Theo,

Do you blame someone if he fails to be moved by a painting which is recorded in the catalogue as a Memling but which has nothing to do with Memling other than that it’s a similar subject from the Gothic period but without artistic value?

And if you should now assume from what I’ve said that I intended to say you were a quack because of your advice then you will have completely misunderstood me, since I have no such idea or opinion of you.

If, on the other hand, you think that I thought I would do well to take your advice literally and become a lithographer of invoice headings and visiting cards, or a bookkeeper or a carpenter’s apprentice — likewise that of my very dear sister Anna to devote myself to the baker’s trade or many other things of that kind (quite remarkably diverse and mutually exclusive) — which it was suggested I pursue, you would also be mistaken.

But, you say, I’m not giving you this advice for you to follow to the letter, but because I thought you had a taste for idling and because I was of the opinion that you should put an end to it.

Might I be allowed to point out to you that such idling is really a rather strange sort of idling. It’s rather difficult for me to defend myself on this score, but I would be sorry if you couldn’t eventually see this in a different light. I also don’t know if I would do well to counter such accusations by following the advice to become a baker, for example. That would really be a sufficient answer (supposing it were possible for us to assume the guise of a baker or hair-cutter or librarian with lightning speed) and yet actually a foolish response, rather like the way the man acted who, when accused of heartlessness because he was sitting on a donkey, immediately dismounted and continued on his way with the donkey on his shoulders.

And, joking apart, I honestly think it would be better if the relationship between us were more trusting on both sides. If I must seriously feel that I’m annoying or burdensome to you or those at home, useful for neither one thing nor another, and were to go on being forced to feel like an intruder or a fifth wheel in your presence, so that it would be better I weren’t there, and if I should have to continue trying to keep further and further out of other people’s way — if I think that indeed it would be so and cannot be otherwise, then I’m overcome by a feeling of sorrow and I must struggle against despair.

It’s difficult for me to bear these thoughts and more difficult still to bear the thought that so much discord, misery and sorrow, in our midst and in our family, has been caused by me.

à Dieu, ontvang in gedachten een handdruk en geloof mij

Yours truly

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Monday, 11 and Thursday, 14 August 1879.

Image : Cuesmes – Rue du Cerisier

My dear Theo,

Sometimes in winter it’s so bitterly cold that one says, it’s simply too cold, what do I care whether summer comes, the bad outweighs the good. But whether we like it or not, an end finally comes to the hard frost, and one fine morning the wind has turned and we have a thaw. Comparing the natural state of the weather with our state of mind and our circumstances, subject to variableness and change, I still have some hope that it can improve.

If you write, soon perhaps, you will make me happy. Just in case, address your letter care of J.Bte Denis, rue du Petit-Wasmes à Wasmes (Hainaut).

Walked to Wasmes after your departure that evening. Have since drawn a portrait.

Adieu, accept in thought a handshake, and believe me

Yours truly,

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Monday, 11 and Thursday, 14 August 1879.

Image : Cuesmes – coal mine no. 14 of the Levant de Flénu company

My dear Theo,

It’s with some reluctance that I write to you, not having done so for so long, and that for many a reason. Up to a certain point you’ve become a stranger to me, and I too am one to you, perhaps more than you think; perhaps it would be better for us not to go on this way.

It’s possible that I wouldn’t even have written to you now if it weren’t that I’m under the obligation, the necessity, of writing to you. If, I say, you yourself hadn’t imposed that necessity. I learned at Etten that you had sent fifty francs for me; well, I accepted them. Certainly reluctantly, certainly with a rather melancholy feeling, but I’m in some sort of impasse or mess; what else can one do?

And so it’s to thank you for it that I’m writing to you.

As you may perhaps know, I’m back in the Borinage; my father spoke to me of staying in the vicinity of Etten instead; I said no, and I believe I acted thus for the best. Without wishing to, I’ve more or less become some sort of impossible and suspect character in the family, in any event, somebody who isn’t trusted, so how, then, could I be useful to anybody in any way?

For today, I shake your hand, thanking you again for the kindness you’ve shown me.

Now if you’d like to write to me one of these days, my address is care of C. Decrucq, rue du Pavillon 8, Cuesmes, near Mons, and know that by writing you’ll do me good.

Yours truly,

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, 22 and Thursday, 24 June 1880.

Note 1 : The previous surviving letter dates from between about 11 and 14 August 1879 (letter 154). There is now a gap of one whole year in the correspondence, also in that of the family as a whole. Tension, conflicts and disagreements about Vincent’s future led to ill will and seem to have been the cause of letters being withheld from publication or destroyed. One gathers from remarks made by Vincent later on that in 1880 his father had planned to have him committed to a lunatic asylum in Geel (Belgium).

Note 2 : Whereas Vincent’s previous leters to Theo from the Borinage were written in their mother tongue, this one , as well as the 5 following ones, are in French.

Image : drawing of the house of Cherles Decrucq where Vincent shared a room with the children (by an anonymous artist)

House of Charles Decrucq before renovation works in the 1970s

Van Gogh Huse in Cuesmes today

Maison Van Gogh Cuesmes - intérieur

My Dear Theo,

In the springtime a bird in a cage knows very well that there’s something he’d be good for; he feels very clearly that there’s something to be done but he can’t do it; what it is he can’t clearly remember, and he has vague ideas and says to himself, ‘the others are building their nests and making their little ones and raising the brood’, and he bangs his head against the bars of his cage. And then the cage stays there and the bird is mad with suffering. ‘Look, there’s an idler’, says another passing bird — that fellow’s a sort of man of leisure. And yet the prisoner lives and doesn’t die; nothing of what’s going on within shows outside, he’s in good health, he’s rather cheerful in the sunshine. But then comes the season of migration. A bout of melancholy — but, say the children who look after him, he’s got everything that he needs in his cage, after all — but he looks at the sky outside, heavy with storm clouds, and within himself feels a rebellion against fate. I’m in a cage, I’m in a cage, and so I lack for nothing, you fools! Me, I have everything I need!30 Ah, for pity’s sake, freedom, to be a bird like other birds!

An idle man like that resembles an idle bird like that.

And it’s often impossible for men to do anything, prisoners in I don’t know what kind of horrible, horrible, very horrible cage. There is also, I know, release, belated release. A reputation ruined rightly or wrongly, poverty, inevitability of circumstances, misfortune; that creates prisoners.

You may not always be able to say what it is that confines, that immures, that seems to bury, and yet you feel I know not what bars, I know not what gates — walls.

Is all that imaginary, a fantasy? I don’t think so; and then you ask yourself, Dear God, is this for long, is this for ever, is this for eternity

Yours truly,

Vincent

Vincent To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, 22 and Thursday, 24 June 1880.

Note : This is probably one of the longest and most remarkable letters Vincent wrote to Theo. The complete letter can be found on www.vangoghletters.org, letter 155.

Image : postcard Old Cemetery of Cuesmes

Dear Theo,

If I’m not mistaken, you should still have Millet’s ‘The labours of the fields’. Would you be so kind as to lend them to me for a short while, and to send them to me by post?

You should know that I’m sketching large drawings after Millet, and that I’ve done The four times of the day, as well as The sower.

Well, if you saw them perhaps you wouldn’t be too unhappy with them. Now, if you’d like to send me The labours of the fields, perhaps you could also add some other sheets by or after Millet, J. Breton, Feyen-Perrin, &c. Don’t buy any specially, but lend me what you may have.

Send me what you can, and don’t have any fears on my account. If only I can go on working, I’ll recover somehow. But you’d be a great help to me by doing this.

The Millets that I’ve done are The four times of the day, the format more or less that of a sheet from the Bargue drawing course. You’ll understand well enough yourself what I need to make it unnecessary for me to tell you,but I’ll tell you nevertheless, so that you can know my thinking. They’re mainly figure studies, such as Millet’s The diggers, or the lithograph after his Winnower.

If you pay a visit to Holland sooner or later, I hope you won’t pass by without coming to see the scratches.

I’m writing to you while drawing and I’m in a hurry to get back to it, so good-night, and send the sheets as soon as possible, and believe me

Ever yours,

Vincent

c/o Charles Decrucq

rue du Pavillon 3

Cuesmes.

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Friday, 20 August 1880.

Image : Vincent Van Gogh, The Diggers, after Millet (1880). Collection of the Artotèque? Mons, Belgium

Dear Theo,

I’ve done a scratch of miners, male and female thrutchersb, going to the pit in the morning, in the snow, on a path beside a thorn-hedge: passing shadows, dimly visible in the dusk. In the background, the large mine buildings and the slag heap are becoming indistinct against the sky. I’m sending you the croquis so that you can picture it for yourself. But I feel the need to study figure drawing from masters like Millet, Breton and Brion or Boughton, or someone else. What do you think of the croquis? Does the idea seem good to you?

In the photographs after J. Breton by Bingham there is, if I remember rightly, one of women gleaners. Dark silhouettes against a sky in which the sun is setting, red. There you are, it’s things like that I need to have before my eyes. It’s because I think you’d prefer to see me doing something good than doing nothing at all that I’m writing to you on this subject, and perhaps it would be a reason why good understanding and friendship might be re-established between the two of us, and we might perhaps be useful to one another.

I’d very much like to execute the drawing in question better than I have done. In the one that I’ve done, as it stands, the figures might be about 10 centimetres high. The pendant is of the miners’ return, but it’s less successful as it stands. It’s very difficult, as it involves an effect of brown silhouettes encircled by light against a streaky sunset sky.

Send The labours of the fields by return of post if you can and if you will.

Ever yours,

Vincent

c/o Charles Decrucq

rue du Pavillon 3

Cuesmes.

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Friday, 20 August 1880.

Image : miners going to the pit in the snow, Vincent Van Gogh (1880)

Dear Theo,

For quite a while I’ve been scribbling down drawings without making much progress, but recently it’s been going better, it seems to me, and I’m confident that it will go better still. Especially in view of the fact that Mr Tersteeg and you, too, have come to my aid with good models; because I believe I do much better for the time being by first copying some good things than by working without that foundation.

However, I couldn’t help sketching, in fairly large dimensions, the drawing of the miners going to the pit, of which I sent you the croquis, changing the arrangement of the figures slightly.

I really hope that after copying Bargue’s two other series as well9 I’ll be able to draw a more or less reasonable miner or female thrutcher, when one of these days it will be possible for me to have a model with some character, and as far as that’s concerned, there are some here.

One of these days I’ll earn a farthing or two with some scratch of a miner.

For today, I’ll end this letter by thanking you again and shaking your hand.

Vincent

Address C. Decrucq.

3 rue du Pavillon

Cuesmes (near Mons)

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Tuesday, 7 September 1880.

Image : Vincent Van Gogh, Miners going to the pit (1880)

Dear Theo,

Your letter did me good; I thank you for writing to me like that.

I’m still working on Bargue’s Cours de dessin, and plan to finish it before undertaking anything else, since day by day it exercises and strengthens both my hand and my mind, and I wouldn’t be able to feel sufficiently indebted to Mr Tersteeg for having so generously lent them to me. These models are excellent. In the meantime I’m busy reading a book on anatomy and another on perspective, which Mr Tersteeg also sent me. This study is thorny, and sometimes these books are as irritating as could be, but nevertheless I believe that I’m doing the right thing by studying them.

You can see, then, that I’m working like mad, but for the moment it isn’t giving very heartening results. But I have hopes that these thorns will bear white flowers in their time, and that this apparently sterile struggle is nothing other than a labour of giving birth. First pain, then joy afterwards.

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Friday, 24 September 1880.

Image : Vincent Van Gogh, The bearers of the burden (1881), drawing, 47,5cm x 63cm, collection : Kröller-Müller Museum)

Dear Theo,

Last winter I saw Courrières. I made a trip on foot mainly in the Pas de Calais, not the Channel but the department. Or province. I made that trip hoping perhaps to find work there (any sort, if possible; I would have accepted anything), but actually without any real plan, I couldn’t precisely say why. But I’d said to myself, You must see Courrières. I had only 10 francs in my pocket, and having started out by taking the train I’d soon exhausted those resources, and having stayed on the road for a week, I trudged rather painfully. Nevertheless, I saw Courrières and the outside of Mr Jules Breton’s studio. The outside of this studio disappointed me a little, seeing that it’s a brand-new studio and newly built in brick, of a Methodist regularity, of an aspect as inhospitable and chilly and ascetic as C.M.’s Jovinda, which, between ourselves, I don’t much like either for this same reason. If I’d been able to see the inside I would have thought no more about the outside, I’m inclined to believe, and I’m sure of it even, but there you are, I wasn’t able to get a look at the inside.

Because I didn’t dare to introduce myself, so as to go in.

But at any rate I saw the Courrières countryside then, the haystacks, the brown farmland or the almost coffee-coloured marly soil, with whitish spots where the marl appears, which is something rather extraordinary for those of us who are used to blackish soil. And the French sky seemed to me far more clear and limpid than the smoky and misty Borinage sky. Furthermore, there were the farmhouses and sheds that had still preserved their mossy thatched roofs, God be praised and thanked for it; I also saw hosts of crows, famous from the paintings of Daubigny and Millet. Not to mention first of all, as one should, the typical and picturesque figures of the workmen: different diggers, woodcutters, a farm-hand driving his team, and the occasional outline of a woman in a white bonnet. Even there, at Courrières, there was a coal-mine or pit; I saw the day-shift coming up at dusk, but there were no women workers in men’s clothing, as in the Borinage, only miners looking weary and miserable, blackened by coal-dust, wearing pit-rags and one of them an old army greatcoat. Although this stage was almost unbearable to me, and I returned from it worn out, with bruised feet and in a rather melancholy state, I don’t regret it, because I saw interesting things and you learn to see with a quite different eye, there among the raw ordeals of poverty itself. I earned a few crusts of bread en route here and there in exchange for some drawings that I had in my suitcase. But when my ten francs were gone, I had to bivouac out in the open for the last 3 nights, once in an abandoned carriage, all white with frost in the morning, a rather poor shelter, once in a wood-pile and once, and it was a little better, in a haystack that had been broached, where I managed to make a slightly more comfortable nest, only a fine rain didn’t exactly add to my well-being.

Well, and notwithstanding, it was in this extreme poverty that I felt my energy return and that I said to myself, in any event I’ll recover from it, I’ll pick up my pencil that I put down in my great discouragement and I’ll get back to drawing, and from then on, it seems to me, everything has changed for me, and now I’m on my way and my pencil has become somewhat obedient and seems to become more so day by day. It was poverty, too long and too severe, that had discouraged me to the point where I could no longer do anything.

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Friday, 24 September 1880.

Image : postcard of Courrières

Dear Theo,

For the moment, it’s better that I stay here, working as I can and will be able to, and after all, it’s cheaper to live here.

However, I’d be unable to continue much longer in the little room where I am now. It’s tiny as it is, and there are two beds, the children’s and mine. And now that I’m doing the Bargues, quite big sheets, I couldn’t tell you what a nuisance it is to me. I don’t want to bother the people in their household arrangements; and also they’ve told me that as far as the other room in the house goes, there was no way for me to have it, even if I paid more, because the wife needs it to do her washing, which in a miner’s house has to be done almost every day.

So I would like simply to take a little workman’s house; that costs 9 francs a month on average.

I couldn’t tell you how much (despite the fact that every day new difficulties present themselves and will continue to present themselves), I couldn’t tell you how happy I feel to have taken up drawing again. It had already been on my mind for a long time, but I always saw the thing as impossible and beyond my reach. But now, while feeling both my weakness and my painful dependence in respect of many things, I’ve recovered my peace of mind, and my energy is coming back day by day.

For me it’s a matter of learning to draw well, to be master either of my pencil or my charcoal or my brush; once that’s achieved I’ll do good things almost no matter where, and the Borinage is every bit as picturesque as old Venice, as Arabia, as Brittany, Normandy, Picardy or Brie.

Thanking you for your kindness, chiefly for The bush, I shake your hand.

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Friday, 24 September 1880.

Image : postcard of Pâturages, Rue de la Montagne

Dear Theo,

As you see, I’m writing to you from Brussels. Because I thought it was the right thing to do to move somewhere else for the moment. And that for more than one reason. First, it was from urgent necessity, as the little study where I was staying and which you were able to see last year was so cramped and the light there was so bad that it was very inconvenient for drawing.

It’s true that if I could have had another room in the house I could have stayed, but the people of the house needed it, this other room, to do their household chores and washing, and even if I paid a little more there was no way of having it. It’s also true that for the Exercices au fusain and Les modèles d’après la bosse from Bargue, I did draw them there all the same, either in the little study or outside in the garden, but now that I’ve come to the portraits after Holbein &c. in the 3rd part of the Cours de dessin, it wouldn’t do any more.

That means that I’ve moved, and now to remedy things somewhat radically, here’s my plan, which I’ve begun to carry out. I’ve been to see Mr Schmidt, here in Brussels, and have spoken to him about the matter. That’s to say, I’ve asked him if through his good offices there might not be a way for me to make contact and connection with some artist, so that I could continue to learn in some serious studio. Because I feel that it’s absolutely necessary to have good things before one’s eyes, and also to see artists at work. Because that makes me feel more strongly what I lack, and at the same time I’m learning the way to remedy it.

For a long time now I haven’t seen enough paintings or drawings &c., and the mere sight of a few good things here in Brussels has raised my morale, so to speak, and has further increased the desire that I have to learn to do something with my own hands.

Once I am master of my pencil or of watercolour or of etching, I can return to the region of the miners or weavers, to do things better from life than thus far. But first I must acquire a modicum of skill.

Well then, I conclude for the moment, hoping that you’ll be in agreement with what I’ve told you.

I believe that a lodging and perhaps also a diet slightly better than that of the Borinage will also help to build me up a bit. Because I’ve certainly experienced some sufferings in the Belgian ‘black country’, and my health hasn’t been too good lately. But provided that I succeed one day in being able actually to draw what I wish to express, I’ll forget all that and will remember only the good aspect of things, which also exists if one is willing to observe it. But I must nevertheless try to build myself up a little, because I need all my energy.

Shaking your hand

Vincent

Vincent to Theo van Gogh. Brussels, Friday, 15 October 1880

Image : postcard of Cuesmes, Grand Place

My dear friend Boch,

Many thanks for your letter, which gave me great pleasure. I congratulate you on not having hesitated this time — and on having tackled the Borinage. That’s a field in which you’ll be able to work for the whole of your life, the extraordinary landscape as well as the human figure!

The female thrutchers in pit-rags, in particular, are superb. If you ever go to Petit-Wasmes, would you find out if Jean Baptiste Denis (farmer) and Joseph Quinez (miner) are still living there, and tell them on my behalf that I’ve never forgotten the Borinage, and that I’ll always have a wish to see it again?

Your portrait is in my bedroom, with the one of Millet the Zouave that I’ve just done. I’d very much like to ask you to do an exchange with me of one of your studies of the coal-mines. Wait, I’ll send you a study first then, which I’m sure will be one of those that will seem entirely unfamiliar to you. Because if you saw the night studies, you’d perhaps like them better than the studies of sunlight. Well, let me decide. Because I sincerely hope that our relationship, once embarked upon, will last for good.

Because everything you do will be of extraordinary interest to me, since I so much love that sad region of the Borinage, which will always be unforgettable to me.

If I come to Paris next year, then I’m more or less determined to push on as far as Mons. And perhaps to my own country, to do places there that I knew before. Thus, in the Borinage, Marcasse or St-Antoine at Petit-Wasmes. And then the Cour de l’Agrappe, at your place in Frameries In short, it was in the Borinage that I began to work from nature for the first time. But I destroyed all that long ago, of course.

But it touches my heart that in the end all these places are going to be painted.

You’ll see how the ideas will come to you. I’m writing to you in great haste, but I wanted to reply right away.

Is your sister also going to do miners? There’s certainly work for two people there. I believe that it’s very fortunate for you that the two of you both do painting in your house.

Ah well, I have to go to work in the vineyard, near Montmajour. It’s all purplish yellow green under the blue sky, a beautiful, colour motif. Good handshake and good luck, and much success in your work.

Ever yours,

Vincent

Pardon my great haste; I don’t even have time to re-read the letter.