Vincent's Struggle For Commercial Success

VINCENT’S STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL SUCCESS JOHN A. WALKER (Copyright, 2009). ‘I, for my part, know well enough that the future will always remain very difficult for me, and I am almost sure that in the future I shall never be what people call prosperous.’ (Vincent van Gogh, letter to Theo van Gogh from Nuenen, late September 1884). (1) Sales Popular legend has it that during his lifetime of 37 years the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) sold none of his paintings or that he sold only one, namely, ‘The Red Vineyard’ (1888), which was bought for 400 francs by Anna Boch a fellow painter and member of the Belgium group Les XX (Les Vingt or The Twenty) where the painting along with five others was exhibited at the Musée d’Art Moderne, Brussels in January-February 1890.

1) Vincent van Gogh, ‘The Red Vineyard’, (1888), Oil on canvas, 75 x 93 cm. Moscow: Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

However, Vincent did sell more than one work of art; for example, in February 1882 he reported to Theo that he had sold a small drawing to Hermanus Gijsbertus Tersteeg (1845-1927), his former manager at Goupil & Co art gallery in The Hague,

for ten guilders. Later, in May and June, he informed his brother that he had sold twelve small pen and ink drawings of views of The Hague to his uncle Cornelius van Gogh for twenty guilders. And while in Arles he wrote a letter to Theo about his financial dealings with the Parisian colour merchant Julien Tanguy (1825-94) during 1886 or 87 in which he mentions the sale of two portraits for one of which he received twenty francs:

‘I have again been thinking that when you remember that I painted ‘The Portrait of Père Tanguy’, and that he also had the portrait of mother Tanguy (which they sold), and of their friend [a female friend of Madame Tanguy] (it is true that for this latter portrait I was paid 20 francs by him) …’ (Letter to Theo, circa 9 July 1888).

Later, in a letter dated 8 October 1888, Vincent remarked on Theo’s good news about Athanase Bague, a Parisian art dealer with a taste for rich colour and impasto. From Vincent’s comment - ‘tell Bague that I am very pleased he has bought that study, and that I shall be doing studies as long as the autumn is propitious’ - it sounds as though Theo had managed to sell one of Vincent’s Arles studies to Bague.

Émile Bernard has also claimed that while in Paris Vincent accumulated canvases rapidly (because he was painting three per day) and that he then sold them to ‘the nearest junk seller for prices that didn’t even pay for the cost of the materials he’d used’. In addition, according to Paul Gauguin, van Gogh sold a still life of shrimps

to a dealer for the paltry sum of five francs and then gave the money away to a female beggar in the streets of Paris whose need was greater than his own. (2)

2) Ernest Ladrey, ‘Theo van Gogh’, (1888?), photographic portrait. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum.

Furthermore, it could be argued that Vincent sold the vast majority of his output because he sent it to an art dealer in Paris in exchange for a monthly stipend and the supply of canvas and pigments. The art dealer in question, of course, was his younger brother Theo (1857-91) who was employed as a manager by Boussod Valadon & Cie, which had branch premises at 19 Boulevard Montmartre. (3) Theo, therefore, was not his own boss and was somewhat restricted in the advanced art that he could show and sell. It is significant that he never felt able to mount a solo show of his brother’s work at Boussods. Often, he desired to become independent and Vincent frequently urged him to do so but Theo always lacked the requisite capital to set up on his own. A failed attempt to establish his own business or to gain an increase in salary occurred just before Vincent’s suicide and this was probably a precipitating factor. Theo now had a wife and child to support and Vincent realised that he was becoming an intolerable burden to his brother.

According to the art expert Martin Bailey, a photograph exists of a letter from Theo on Boussod & Valadon headed notepaper dated 3 October 1888 to the London dealer Arthur Sulley of W. D. Lawrie & Co. 15 Old Bond Street confirming the dispatch of a Corot landscape and a van Gogh self-portrait to London following their sale to Sulley. Which self-portrait and what happened to it is not known. (4)

3) ‘Letter from Theo van Gogh to London dealers Sulley & Lawrie’. (3 October 1888). Clearly, there is evidence that Vincent sold several works of art during his lifetime but of course this does not negate the fact that, if one ignores the money Theo paid him, Vincent’s income from sales was insufficient to support him.

Early career ambitions Before he became a full time artist, Vincent had worked in the art trade himself in print and picture galleries in The Hague, London and Paris (1869-76), consequently he was well informed about the art market. Furthermore, three of his uncles Cornelius Marinus van Gogh (known as C.M.), Hendrik Vincent van Gogh (known as Uncle Hein) and Vincent van Gogh (known as Uncle Cent) - were or had been successful art dealers. Thus both Vincent and Theo were aware that the art trade could be a prosperous business. Although Vincent was often critical of this trade, he did not entirely disdain commercial success because he wished to make a living as an artist, because he wanted his art to reach an audience and because he longed to repay his brother’s generous and sustained investment, which had begun in 1882 with a monthly allowance of 100 francs (later increased to 150 francs). (Eventually, Theo earned around 7000 francs per annum and therefore by giving Vincent 1800 francs or more he sacrificed about a quarter of his income. ) Vincent’s first priorities as a budding artist were to improve his skills and accumulate a body of work. However, even as early as August 1885 he tried to sell work via a display in the shop windows of a art supplier Willem Leurs (1828-95) who had premises at 3-5 Molenstraat, The Hague. Vincent sent Leurs a total of nineteen finished paintings and studies including images of cottages, an old church tower and figures. Nothing appears to have been sold and exactly what happened to the paintings after the show remains unclear.

It is well known that Vincent admired and collected printed images reproduced in

illustrated magazines particularly those he first saw in England. Early in his career as an artist he too toyed with the idea of moving to London and making a living as an illustrator. However, this idea was never followed up and it is unlikely that Vincent would have been temperamentally suited to working to commission and to deadlines for the editor of a magazine. At the Hague in 1882, Vincent had a series of drawings turned into lithographs, which he hoped would be purchased by workmen and displayed in farms. By employing a reproductive medium he intended to make an art depicting the people for the people. He also envisaged a combination of artists distributing prints in popular editions, artists who would work for reasons of public duty and service rather than for personal financial gain. At this time Vincent considered himself equivalent to a labourer or shoemaker rather than a member of a bourgeois profession. In truth these socialistic and idealistic ideas did not reach fruition and by the time Vincent was painting in Provence in 1888 and 1889 the emphasis in his art was more on decorative, colourful landscapes and still lifes (even though he was still keen to portray peasants, mothers, postmen and soldiers). The following remarks to Theo indicate a more pragmatic attitude, that is, a change in his conception of his potential audience and market:

‘Nothing would help us to sell our canvases more than if they could gain general acceptance as decorations for middle-class houses. The way it used to be in Holland.’ (Letter to Theo from Arles, circa 19 July 1888).

Vincent had finally accepted that his favourite subjects - peasants, miners and

weavers - were not going to provide a market for his work because they could not afford fine artworks.

Vincent’s letters to Theo are sprinkled with ideas and schemes for selling and developing what he regarded as their joint venture. (Eventually, Vincent considered Theo as a co-producer of his work.) For example, in May and July 1888 Vincent executed a series of six elaborate pen-and-ink landscape drawings from the rocky hill of the Abbey of Montmajour just north of Arles.

4) Vincent van Gogh, ‘La Campagne du côté des bords du Rhône vue de Mont Majour,’ (1888), reed pen and ink drawing, 48.7 x 60.7 cm. London: British Museum.

These were signed and planned as works of art in their own right, which Vincent suggested to Theo might be of interest to Georges Thomas, a Parisian art dealer with a gallery at 43 Boulevard Malesherbes. Vincent wrote: ‘If Thomas should happen to want them, he cannot have them for less than 100 francs each.’ (Letter to Theo, circa 13 July 1888). In the event Thomas did not buy them.

The van Gogh Collection By sending his newly completed canvases and drawings to Theo, Vincent’s intention was to build up a substantial inventory of his work for future exhibitions and sales. However, their private collection or ‘our stock’ - which also included Japanese prints - needed variety, that is, the work of other artists they admired. This was achieved in three ways: first, gifts made to Theo by artists he had assisted or befriended; second, works purchased by Theo that he liked and could afford by such figures as Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Seurat; and third, exchanges Vincent made with contemporaries such as Gauguin, Armand Guillaumin, Frank Myers Boggs, Leo Gausson, Bernard, Charles Laval, John Russell and so forth. It was this collection that was inherited by Theo’s widow Jo in 1891 and which eventually became the basis for the core holdings of the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. (5)

Bartering Bartering canvases for goods and services rendered was another means by which Vincent survived. For instance, in 1887, at the Café du Tambourin, 62 Boulevard de

Clichy run by Agostina Segatori (1841-1910, an ex-artists’ model of Italian origin), a woman with whom Vincent had an affair, he paid for meals with a portrait and flower studies, which were also put on show.

5) Vincent van Gogh, ‘Agostina Segatori in the Café du Tambourin,’ (1887) Oil on Canvas, 55.5 x 46.5 cm. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum.

He also mounted an exhibition of Japanese prints at the café. Later, Vincent was to describe the display of paintings he organised at the café as ‘a disaster’ because of some altercation with a waiter and a falling out with Segatori. In 1908, Bernard recalled: ‘then the place went to ruin, was sold, and all the paintings, in a pile, were sold off for a laughable sum.’ (6)

It seems certain that Vincent also paid Père Tanguy for art supplies in terms of paintings including portraits of him. He also made portraits of the doctors Félix Rey in Arles and Paul Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise who treated him and gave them to his sitters. Unfortunately, recipients of his gifts often failed to appreciate Vincent’s art. One canvas, for instance, was later discovered being used to patch a hole in a roof.

Networking in Paris

During the period he spent sharing apartments with Theo in Paris (1886-88), Vincent spent much of his time learning about Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism and the complexities of the Parisian art scene, and becoming acquainted with fellow artists such as Bernard, Gauguin, Louis Anquetin, A. S. Hartrick, Paul Signac, John Peter Russell, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec, colour merchants such as Tanguy and the firm of Tasset et L’Hote at 31 Rue Fontaine, and art dealers such as Georges Thomas, Athanase Bague, Alphonse Portier, Pierre-Firmin Martin, Alexander Reid and Arnold & Tripp of 8 Rue Saint-Georges. (In modern parlance: he was networking.) Portier (1841-1902) lived in the same building in Rue Lepic as Theo and was a dealer in Impressionist paintings. At one point he took four of Vincent’s canvases on consignment. Martin (1817-91), also a dealer in Impressionist works, lived at 29 Rue Saint-Georges and was a friend of Theo. In 1887, Vincent painted a portrait of Martin’s niece - Leonie Rose Davy-Charbuy. This may have been an attempt by Vincent to please the dealer and to establish himself as a portrait painter available for commissions. The red headed Scottish dealer Reid (1854-1928), who closely resembled Vincent, was also one of his sitters. Vincent gave Reid two canvases: a full length portrait and a still life of apples.

6) Vincent van Gogh, ‘Portrait of Alexander Reid,’ (1886-7). Oil on board, 46 x 32 cm, Norman, University of Oklahoma: Fred Jones Jr Museum o Art.

Vincent called the group of artists with whom he particularly identified ‘the Painters of the Petit Boulevard’ to distinguish them from the more established

Impressionists or School of the Grand Boulevard such as Edgar Degas and Claude Monet. (7) In their spare time Theo and Vincent engaged in discussions with their contemporaries as to the best ways in which artists could organise - to found mutual aid associations, to pool their resources - in order to further their economic interests. They even proposed resale right payments for artists. After he moved to Arles, the idea of an association of artists was still preoccupying Vincent as the following remarks to Theo indicate:

‘Perhaps it would be easier to get a few dealers and collectors to agree to buy the Impressionist paintings than to get the artists to agree to share the price of their paintings. Nevertheless, the artists couldn't do better than to get together, and give over to the association, and share the proceeds of the sales, so that the society could at least guarantee its members a chance to live and to work. If de Gas [Degas], Claude Monet, Renoir, Sisley and C. Pissarro took the initiative, saying, “Look here, we 5 give 10 paintings each (or rather we each give to the value of 10,000 Frs. to be estimated by expert members such as Tersteeg and yourself, co-opted by the Society, said experts likewise to put in capital in the form of paintings) and we further undertake to hand over every year pictures to the value of… “And we invite you others, Guillaumin, Seurat, Gauguin, etc., etc., to join with us (your paintings to undergo the same expert evaluation).” Thus the great impressionists of the Grand Boulevard, while giving pictures which would become general property, would keep their prestige, and the others could no longer reproach them with keeping to themselves the advantages of a reputation no doubt acquired primarily through

their personal efforts and individual genius, but all the same a reputation that is growing, buttressed and actually maintained by the paintings of a whole battalion of artists who have been working in perpetual poverty. Anyway, it is to be hoped that it will come off, and that Tersteeg and you will become expert members (with Portier, perhaps?).’ (Letter to Theo, 10 March 1888).

Competition and individualism were powerful ideologies during the nineteenth century that influenced the art world but it also seems clear that the urge to cooperate was a countervailing force. Self-help, of course, was also a Victorian philosophy.

Exhibitions Vincent strongly believed that one of the means by which impoverished artists could improve their financial situation and social isolation was through cooperative actions such as making exchanges and organising group exhibitions. One of the ways in which radical artists in Paris avoided rejection by the juries of the government sponsored Salon and by private art galleries was to mount exhibitions themselves in such places as hired rooms, restaurants and cafes. Vincent took the initiative in organising one such show at the Grand Bouillon-Restaurant du Chalet, 43 Avenue de Clichy, Montmartre in November 1887. Lucien Martin is believed to have been the owner of this popular or working class restaurant and there is a portrait of him by van Gogh dated 1887. A large number of works were displayed

and participants included Vincent, Louis Anquetin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Arnold Koning and Bernard. Although this show seems to have received little public attention, both Anquetin and Bernard sold works from it. In December 1887 Vincent’s canvases were also shown in the foyer of the Théâtre Libre de Antoine, 96 Rue Blanche, along with others by Seurat and Signac. During 1888 Theo submitted three of Vincent’s paintings to the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, which had been founded in 1884.

7) Vincent van Gogh, ‘Irises,’ (1889), Oil on canvas, 70.1 x 90.3 cm. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust/Museum.

In September 1889, Vincent’s ‘Irises’ (1889) and ‘Starry night over the Rhone’ (1888) were included in the Indépendants annual show and Theo informed his brother that, although the exhibition in general had been poor, the ‘Irises’ had been seen and admired by many visitors. During March 1890, Theo selected ten of Vincent canvases for display at the annual Indépendants exhibition held at the Pavillon de la Ville de Paris, Champs-Elysées. Gauguin was much impressed by Vincent’s contribution and so was Claude Monet.

Artists, critics and dealers visiting Theo’s flat at 54 Rue Lepic, Montmartre naturally saw Vincent’s latest canvases on display. Another place in which Vincent’s paintings were visible was Tanguy’s artists’ materials shop at 27 Rue Clauzel, Montmartre. Sometimes Tanguy displayed a van Gogh in the shop’s window and for a while Theo rented a room there to store his brother’s art.

8) Vincent van Gogh, ‘Portrait of Père Tanguy.’ (1886-7). Oil on canvas, 47.0 x 38.5 cm, Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

At Tanguy’s his pictures would have been seen by many visiting artists alongside works by Paul Cézanne, Gauguin and Seurat. (Tanguy managed to sell several van Goghs from his stock for small sums after the latter’s death in 1890.) Examples of

Vincent’s art could also be seen in the galleries of the dealers Thomas and Martin. So, towards the end of his life, Vincent was exhibiting in the capitals of France and Belgium in the company of other modern artists whose names were soon to become world famous.

Mutual aid Vincent’s interest in mutual aid also explains his plan to establish in Arles a Studio in the South where two or more artists could live together, share expenses and perhaps common aesthetic principles. For a short while - October to December 1888 - this was achieved with Gauguin whose travelling and living expenses were borne by Theo in exchange for canvases. (8) The two painters did not think of exhibiting in Arles but they did consider the city of Marseilles as a possible venue. During November 1888, Theo managed to sell three of Gauguin’s works exhibited in Paris and Vincent may have felt encouraged by this development. Alternatively, he may have felt envy and wondered: ‘If Theo can sell Gauguin’s work, why cannot he sell mine?’ The hurtful accusation posed by strangers to Vincent or in self reproach - ‘Your pictures never sell’ - he sometimes explained by blaming Theo for not making enough efforts on his behalf. (9) For a long time Theo did not try to sell Vincent’s work because it was raw and gloomy in character and still in the early stages of development, and because he was only too aware of the conservative tastes of his employers and most of the public. However, once in receipt of the canvases from Arles, he became convinced of the originality, energy and high aesthetic qualities of Vincent’s work and did what he could to promote it. As he once

reminded Vincent, he was not alone in not selling - there were other radical artists such as Camille Pissarro, Gauguin and so on who also had difficulties in finding buyers.

Criticism and publicity For living artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, critical acclaim and publicity are regarded as essential career mechanisms and an inevitable consequence of today’s press and celebrity culture. Vincent himself began to experience such appraisal and publicity as a consequence of his inclusion in the Salon des Indépendants shows. His reactions were to be mixed. Gustave Kahn made a rather dismissive mention of a van Gogh painting of Parisian novels in an article published in La Revue Indépendante in April 1888, while Félix Fénéon and Luc le Flaneur (G. Albert Aurier [1865-92]) made positive comments in 1889 in La Vogue and Le Moderniste respectively.

9) Vincent van Gogh, ‘Roman Parisiens,’ (1887). Oil on canvas, 73 x 93 cm. Private collection.

Vincent’s work was also noticed in Holland: the Jewish-Dutch painter and writer Joseph Jacob Isaäcson who spent time in Paris and knew Theo well, wrote about Vincent in the Amsterdam weekly De Portfeuille on 17 August 1889. Isaäcson began his ‘Letters from Paris’ with a question:

‘Who is it who interprets for us, through form and colour, that greatness of life, that power of life, of which the 19th century is increasingly aware?’

And he answered:

‘I know of one, a solitary pioneer, he struggles alone in the deep night, and his name, Vincent, is destined to go down in the succeeding generations. There will be more to say in time about this remarkable hero - a Dutchman.’

In March 1890, the anarchist writer Georges Lecomte (1867-1958) praised Vincent’s paintings in the pages of the journal Art et Critique, and in May Julien Leclercq (1865-1901), a French symbolist poet and avant-garde art critic, discussed Vincent’s ten contributions to the Indépendants exhibition of that year in the magazine Mercure de France. Leclercq characterised Vincent as ‘a rare genius’ and was soon to become one of his champions.

Earlier that year, a long positive profile - ‘The Isolated Ones: Vincent van Gogh’ written in overwrought symbolist prose by the French critic G. Albert Aurier was published in Mercure de France 1, 1, in January 1890, pp. 24-29. (Bernard and Theo were instrumental in supplying Aurier with information about Vincent who was then in Provence.)

10) Auguste M. Lauzet, ‘Portrait of G-Albert Aurier,’ (1893). Etching. Frontispiece of G-Albert Aurier, Oeuvres Posthumes, (Paris: Editions Mercure de France, 1893).

Excerpts from it were also published in the Brussels’ journal L’Art Moderne on 19 January 1890. Initially, Vincent was surprised and pleased by Aurier’s article but nevertheless he soon expressed reservations. He wrote to Theo:

‘I was extremely surprised by the article on my paintings you sent me. No need to tell you that I hope to keep thinking that I don't paint like that, but I do gather from

it how I ought to be painting. For the article is absolutely right in the way it shows the gap to be filled, and I think that the writer really wrote it to guide, not only me, but all the other impressionists, and even to help them make the breach in the right place. So he proposes an ideal collective ego to the others quite as much as to me. He simply tells me that here and there he can see something good, if you like, even in my work which is so imperfect, and that is the comforting part, which I appreciate and for which I hope I am grateful. Only it ought to be understood that my back is not broad enough to be saddled with that task, and I need not tell you that, in concentrating the article on me, he has made me feel steeped in flattery. In my opinion it is all as exaggerated as a certain article by Isaäcson about you which claimed that present-day artists had given up quarrelling, and that an important movement was silently taking shape in the little shop on the Boulevard Montmartre. I admit that it is difficult to say what one means, to express oneself properly - just as one cannot paint things as one sees them - and so this isn't really a criticism of Isaäcson's rashness, or that of the other critic, but as far as we are concerned, well, we are merely serving as model, and that is surely a duty and a task like any other. So, should you or I acquire some sort of reputation, then we must simply try to take it as calmly as possible, and to keep our heads. Why not say what he said of my sunflowers, and with far greater justification, of those magnificent and quite perfect hollyhocks of Quost's and his yellow irises, and those splendid peonies of Jeannin's? You know as well as I do that there is always another side of the coin to such praise. But I am glad, and very grateful for the article, or rather “La coeur à l'aise” [Glad at heart], as the revue song has it, since one may need it, as one may indeed have

need of a coin. Moreover, an article like that has its own merit as a critical work of art. As such I think it is to be respected and the writer must raise the tone, harness his conclusions, &c.’ (Letter to Theo, 2 February 1890).

Trepidation and modesty were also evident in his letter of thanks to Aurier (he also gave the critic a canvas depicting cypresses): ‘You may realize now that your article would have been fairer and - it seems to me consequently more powerful, if, when dealing with the question of the nature of `tropical painting' and the question of colour, you had - before speaking of me - done justice to Gauguin and [Adolphe] Monticelli. For the role attaching to me, or that will be attached to me, will remain, I assure you, of very secondary importance.’ (Letter to Aurier, 10 or 11 February 1890).

Clearly, what disturbed Vincent about Aurier’s article was the fact that while he Vincent - was stressing a community ethos, Aurier was being divisive by stressing Vincent’s individual achievement. Later, following a severe mental breakdown, Vincent instructed Theo as follows:

‘Please ask M. Aurier not to write any more articles on my painting, insist upon this, that to begin with he is mistaken about me, since I am too overwhelmed with grief to be able to face publicity. Making pictures distracts me, but if I hear them spoken of, it pains me more than he knows.’ (Letter to Theo, 30 April 1890).

Vincent did not relish being singled out or enjoy the spotlight of fame. Perhaps what he feared above all was the embarrassment associated with public exposure of his episodes of mental breakdown and especially the notorious incident of the threat of violence made against Gauguin in Arles followed by the self-mutilation of his ear and his delivery of the ear lobe to a prostitute in a brothel. Vincent was well aware of the negative effects of press publicity because reports of his actions in the Arles’ newspaper Forum Républicain (30 December 1888) had resulted in a petition against him by concerned locals that eventually forced him to leave town.

In an earlier letter to his mother, Vincent expressed a desire not to be written about but then went on to indicate some satisfaction at the Aurier article and the sale of ‘The Red Vineyard’:

‘I was rather surprised at the article they wrote about me. Isaäcson wanted to do one some time ago, and I asked him not to; I was sorry when I read it, because it is so exaggerated; the problem is different - what sustains me in my work is the very feeling that there are several others doing the same thing I am, so why an article on me and not on those six or seven others, etc.? But I must admit that afterward, when my surprise had passed off a little, I felt at times very much cheered by it; moreover, yesterday Theo wrote me that they had sold one of my pictures at Brussels for 400 francs. Compared with other prices, also those in Holland, this is little, but therefore I try to be productive to be able to go on working at a reasonable cost. And if we have to try to earn our bread with our hands, I have to make up for pretty considerable expenses.’ (Letter from Vincent to his mother, circa 20 February 1890).

The complaint about exaggeration is paradoxical because Vincent himself claimed the right to exaggerate and to use arbitrary colours in his paintings. It seems he was unwilling to permit his literary commentators a comparable artistic license. A few months later Vincent wrote direct to Isaäcson, whose articles on Impressionism he had been reading, and made a statement of extreme selfeffacement:

‘As it is possible that in your next article you will put a few words about me, I will repeat my scruples, so that you will not go beyond a few words, because it is absolutely certain that I shall never do important things.’ (Letter from Vincent to Isaäcson, 25 May 1890).

Attitudes to success Vincent’s attitude to commercial success also seems to have been ambivalent. (W.W. Meissner, a psychoanalyst, has argued persuasively that Vincent’s ambivalence derived from the powerful emotion of shame due to the many humiliations he had experienced in life.) (10) On the one hand, while in Paris during 1886-88, he had made efforts to achieve it, while on the other hand in a pessimistic letter written to Theo in August 1888, he expressed horror at the prospect of success and added:

‘I neither care about success for myself nor about happiness; I do care about the permanence of this vigorous attempt by the Impressionists, I do care about this question of shelter and daily bread for them.’ (Letter to Theo, circa 14 August 1888).

Vincent then compared his attitude to success in the Parisian art world to Gauguin’s. In Vincent’s view, success was more important to Gauguin than to him. No doubt this was because Gauguin lacked the financial support of a brother and had a wife and children in Denmark in need of money. One wonders if Theo thought Vincent’s attitude rather complacent. Since Vincent had spent so many years without selling anything, it would appear that he had come to equate selling with selling out, with a loss of artistic integrity. At times, he seems to have taken masochistic pleasure in the difficulties of his daily existence.

In a letter to his mother and sister, Vincent remarked:

‘As soon as I heard that my work was having some success, and read the article in question, I feared at once that I should be punished for it; this is how things nearly always go in a painter's life: success is about the worst thing that can happen.’ (Letter to his mother and sister, 30 April 1890)

Usually, when Vincent referred to success or immortality in his letters it was as a distant prospect, as something that had to be deferred until his work improved, as something that might happen in the future when he was no longer present and often he thought of himself as merely a link in a chain of artists who would one day enjoy better times. Despite Vincent’s failure during his lifetime to achieve commercial success, it is surely evident that he did pursue it, particularly during his time in Paris, and that towards the end of his life there were signs that his art was beginning to be appreciated by his peer group (artists) and by a number of critics. (This is the normal pattern in the careers of emerging artists; dealers and collectors then follow.) It could be argued that by committing suicide in July 1890, he gave up the struggle prematurely. If one assumes that he could have lived to the age of 70, this would have brought him up to 1923 by which time his art could well have been widely accepted and selling for considerable sums. (In 1923 the British collector Samuel Courtauld paid £3,300 for Vincent’s 1889 landscape ‘A Wheatfield with Cypresses’. )

In spite of painfully slow progress, Theo seems to have been sure of ultimate victory.

In January 1890 he informed Vincent that his paintings on display in Brussels were being praised in newspaper reviews and expressed his confidence in the future:

‘I think we can wait patiently for success to come; you will surely live to see it. It is necessary to get well known without obtruding oneself, and it will come of its own accord by reason of your beautiful pictures.’ (Letter from Theo to Vincent, 22 January 1890)

Posthumous fame As we now know, during the twentieth century, commercial success, critical recognition, popular acclaim and international fame beyond Theo’s and Vincent’s wildest dreams came to pass and Theo’s extraordinary faith in the value of his brother’s art, life and character was finally vindicated. (11) In perhaps the most perceptive analysis of the subsequent glorification of Vincent, Nathalie Heinich has argued, in a chapter entitled ‘Money as a Medium of Atonement’, that society’s failure to reward Vincent during his lifetime contrasted against the millions paid for his works in salerooms after his death resulted in a collective guilt complex that has fuelled frenetic admiration, a compensatory public worship:

‘The discrepancy between today’s prices and those of a century ago generates a sense of injustice,’ which ‘in turn links martyrdom and price inflation. Martyrlike suffering, once transformed into a sacrifice, engenders a feeling of collective guilt with respect to that misunderstood singular figure, the artiste maudit.’ (12)

Vincent himself was well aware of the unfairness of the art market, the fact that huge sums paid for the work of dead artists was of no benefit to them when they were alive and restricted the amount of money living artists could receive. In 1889 he wrote:

‘And those high prices one hears about, paid for work of painters who are dead and who were never paid so much while they were alive, it is a kind of tulip trade, under which the living painters suffer rather than gain any benefit. And it will also disappear like the tulip trade. But one may reason that, though the tulip trade has long been gone and is forgotten, the flower growers have remained and will remain. And thus I consider painting too, thinking that what abides is like a kind of flower growing. And as far as it concerns me, I reckon myself happy to be in it. But for the rest!’ (Letter to his mother, circa 20-22 October 1889). -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(1) Vincent van Gogh’s complete letters can be found on http://www.webexhibits.org And at http://www.vggallery.com/letters. Plus Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh with reproductions of the drawings in the correspondence, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000). A new, revised, annotated edition of the letters is planned for publication in October 2009.

(2) Émile Bernard, ‘Julien Tanguy, called Le Père Tanguy,’ Mercure de France,

November-December 1908. Paul Gauguin, ‘Avant et Après: “The Pink Shrimps”,’ Mercure de France, October 1903.

(3) A detailed biography of Theo van Gogh and an account of his career as a dealer can be found in Theo van Gogh 1857-1891: Art Dealer, Collector and Brother of Vincent, by Chris Stolwijk and Richard Thomson, (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 1999). See also: Jan Hulsker, Vincent and Theo van Gogh: a Dual Biography, (Ann Arbor, Mich: Fuller Publications, c 1990); Marie-Angélique Ozanne & Frédérique de Jode, Theo: the Other Van Gogh, (New York: Vendome, 2004). A useful summary of the changing dynamics of the economic relationship between Vincent and Theo can be found in Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art by Olav Velthuis, (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), pp. 53-55.

(4) Martin Bailey, ‘Van Gogh’s first sale: a self-portrait in London,’ Apollo Magazine, No. 409, March 1996, pp. 20-21.

(5) Richard Kendall & others, Van Gogh’s van Goghs: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Washington, 1998).

(6) Bernard, ‘Julien Tanguy, called Le Père Tanguy,’ Mercure de France, NovemberDecember 1908.

(7) Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard, Cornelia Homburg & others, (New York: Rizzoli, 2001). Published on the occasion of the exhibition Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard, Saint Louis Art Museum, February 17-May 13, 2001, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtisches Galerie, Frankfurt, June 8-September 2, 2001. Also on the Paris period see: B. WelshOvcharov, Vincent van Gogh, his Paris Period, 1886-1888, (Utrecht & The Hague: Editions Victorine, 1976); B. Welsh-Ovcharov, Van Gogh à Paris, (Paris: Musée d’Orsay, 1988).

(8) Douglas Druick & others, Van Gogh and Gauguin: the Studio of the South, (New York & London: Thames & Hudson, 2001). Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name held at the Art Institute of Chicago, September 22, 2001-January 13, 2002 and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, February 9-June 2, 2002. (9) For example in a letter to Theo from Nuenen circa 1 March 1884 Vincent complained: “I'm sure you're right to say that my work must improve a great deal, but at the same time I also think that your efforts to do something with it could become a bit more determined. You have never yet sold a single thing I have done whether for a lot or a little - in fact, you haven't even tried.”

(10) W.W. Meissner, ‘The shame dynamic of Vincent van Gogh,’ The Annual of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 24, 1996, ed. Jerome A. Winer, (London: Routledge, 1997), pp.

205-228.

(11) On the posthumous acclaim of van Gogh see: John A. Walker, ‘The van Gogh Industry’, Art and Artists, Vol 11, No. 5, August 1976, pp. 4-7; Carol M. Zemel, The Formation of a Legend: van Gogh Criticism, 1890-1920, (Ann Arbor, Mich: UMI Research Press, 1980); Tsukasa Ködera (ed.) The Mythology of Van Gogh, (Tokyo & Amsterdam: TV Asahi and John Benjamins, 1993); Nathalie Heinich, The Glory of Van Gogh: An Anthropology of Admiration, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). A very useful compilation of memoirs, documents and reviews relating to van Gogh has been edited by Susan Alyson Stein, Van Gogh: A Retrospective, (New York: Beaux Arts Editions/ Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1986). See also: Gary J. Bamossy, ‘Star gazing: the mythology and commodification of Vincent van Gogh,’ Inside Consumption: Consumer Motives, Goals, and Desires; eds S. Ratneshwar & David Glen Mick, (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 309-329.

(12) Heinich, The Glory of Van Gogh, pp. 108-109.

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