Lust for Life полностью

In the studio he put up his drawings in water-colour and chalk; heads of men and women whose Negro-like, turned up noses, projecting jawbones, and large ears were strongly accentuated. There were weavers and weaver’s looms, women driving the shuttle, peasants planting potatoes. He made friends with his brother Cor; together they built a cupboard and collected at least thirty different birds’ nests, all kinds of moss and plants from the heath, shuttles, spinning wheels, bed warmers, peasants’ tools, old caps and hats, wooden shoes, dishes, and everything connected with country life. They even put a small tree in one of the rear corners.

He settled down to work. He found that bistre and bitumen, which most painters were abandoning, made his colouring ripe and mellow. He discovered that he had to put little yellow in a colour to make it seem very yellow, if he placed it next to a violet or lilac tone.

He also learned that isolation is a sort of prison.

In March his father, who had walked a great distance over the heath to visit a sick parishioner, fell in a heap on the back steps of the parsonage. When Anna Cornelia got to him he was already dead. They buried him in the garden near the old church. Theo came home for the funeral. That night they sat in Vincent’s studio, talking first of family affairs, then of their work.

“I have been offered a thousand francs a month to leave Goupils and go with a new house,” said Theo.

“Are you going to take it?”

“I think not. I have an idea their policy will be purely commercial.”

“But you’ve been writing me that Goupils . . .”

“I know, les Messieurs are also after the big profits. Still, I have been with them for twelve years. Why should I change for a few more francs? Some day they may put me in charge of one of their branches. If they do, I shall begin selling the Impressionists.”

“Impressionists? I think I’ve seen that name in print somewhere. Who are they?”

“Oh, just the younger painters around Paris; Edouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Claude Monet, Sisley, Courbet, Lautrec, Gauguin, Cezanne, Seurat.”

“Where did they get their name?”

“From the exhibition of 1874 at Nadar’s. Claude Monet had a canvas there which he called Impression; Soleil Levant. A newspaper critic by the name of Louis Leroy called it an exhibition of Impressionistes and the name has stuck.”

“Do they work in light or dark colours?”

“Oh, light! They despise dark colours.”

“Then I don’t think I could work with them. I intend to change my colouring, but I shall go darker instead of lighter.”

“Perhaps you will think differently when you come to Paris.”

“Perhaps so. Are any of them selling?”

“Durand-Rel sells an occasional Manet. That’s about all.”

“Then how do they live?”

“Lord only knows. On their wits, mostly. Rousseau gives violin lessons to children; Gauguin borrows from his former stock exchange friends; Seurat is supported by his mother; Cezanne by his father. I can’t imagine where the others get their money.”

“Do you know them all, Theo?”

“Yes, I’m getting acquainted slowly. I’ve been persuading les Messieurs to give them a smaller corner for exhibition at Goupils, but they wouldn’t touch an Impressionist canvas with a ten foot pole.”

“Those fellows sound like the sort I ought to meet. See here, Theo, you do absolutely nothing to procure me some distraction by meeting other painters.”

Theo went to the front window of the studio and stared out over the tiny grass plot that separated the caretaker’s house from the road to Eindhoven.

“Then come to Paris and live with me,” he said. “You’re sure to end up there eventually.”

“I’m not ready yet. I have some work to finish here, first.”

“Well, if you remain in the provinces you can’t hope to associate with your own kind.”

“That may be true. But, Theo, there is one thing I cannot understand. You have never sold a single drawing or painting for me; in fact you have never even tried. Now have you?

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve shown your work to the connoisseurs. They say . . .”

“Oh, the connoisseurs!” Vincent shrugged his shoulders. “I’m well acquainted with the banalities in which most connoisseurs indulge. Surely, Theo, you must know that their opinions have very little to do with the inherent quality of a piece of work.”

“Well, I shouldn’t say that. Your work is almost salable, but . . .”

“Theo, Theo, those are the identical words you wrote to me about my very first sketches from Etten.”

“They are true, Vincent; you seem constantly on the verge of coming into a superb maturity. I pick up each new sketch eagerly, hoping that at last it has happened. But so far. . .”

“As for being salable or unsalable,” interrupted Vincent, knocking out his pipe on the stove, “that is an old saw on which I do not intend to blunt my teeth.”

“You say you have work here. Then pitch in and finish it. The sooner you get to Paris, the better it will be for you. But if you want me to sell in the meantime, send me pictures instead of studies. Nobody wants studies.”