Lust For Life, page 24
“I say,” he exclaimed, “you make a corking motif. I’d like to do you. I’d call it Holy Family!”
Vincent sprang after Weissenbruch with an oath, but the latter got out the door safely. Vincent went back to his family. There was a bit of mirror hung on the wall beside the Rembrandt. Vincent glanced up, caught the reflection of the three of them and in one horrible, devastating instant of clarity saw through the eyes of Weissenbruch . . . the bastard, the whore, and the charity monger.
“What did he call us?” asked Christine.
“The Holy Family.”
“What’s that?”
“A picture of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she buried her head in the baby’s clothes. Vincent went on his knees beside the iron cradle to comfort her. Dusk was creeping in the north window and threw a quiet shadow over the room. Once again Vincent was able to detach himself and see the three of them, just as though he were not a member of the group. This time he saw through the eyes of his own heart.
“Don’t cry, Sien,” he said. “Don’t cry, darling. Lift up your head and dry your tears. Weissenbruch was right!”
11
VINCENT DISCOVERED SCHEVENINGEN and oil painting at about the same time. Scheveningen was a little fishing village lying in a valley of two protective sand dunes on the North Sea. On the beach there were rows of square fishing barks with one mast and deep-coloured, weather beaten sails. They had rude, square rudders behind, fishing nets spread out ready for the sea, and a tiny rust-red or sea-blue triangular flag aloft. There were blue wagons on red wheels to carry the fish to the village; fisherwives in white oilskin caps fastened at the front by two round gold pins; family crowds at the tide’s edge to welcome the barks; the Kurzaal flying its gay flags, a pleasure house for foreigners who liked the taste of salt on their lips, but not choked down their throats. The sea was grey with whitecaps at the shore and ever deepening hues of green fading into a dull blue; the sky was a cleaning grey with patterned clouds and an occasional design of blue to suggest to the fishermen that a sun still shines over Holland. Scheveningen was a place where men worked, and where the people were indigenous to the soil and the sea.
Vincent had been doing a good many street scenes in water-colour and he found that medium satisfactory for a quick impression. But water-colour did not have the depth, the thickness, the character to express the things he needed to say. He yearned for oil, but he was afraid to tackle it because he had heard of so many painters being ruined by going to oil before they learned to draw. Then Theo came to The Hague.
Theo was now twenty-six and a competent art dealer. He travelled frequently for his house, and was everywhere known as one of the best young men in the business. Goupil and Company had sold out in Paris to Boussod, Valadon (known as les Messieurs) and although they had retained Theo in his former position, the art business was not what it had been under Goupil and Uncle Vincent. Pictures were now sold for the highest price obtainable—regardless of merit—and only the successful painters were patronized. Uncle Vincent, Tersteeg, and Goupil had considered it the very first duty of an art dealer to discover and encourage new and young artists; now only the old and recognized painters were solicited. The newcomers in the field, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Cezanne, Degas, Guillaumin, and even younger men, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Seurat and Signac, were trying to say something different from what Bouguereau and the academicians were repeating endlessly, but no one would listen to them. None of these revolutionists had ever had a canvas exhibited or offered up for sale under the roof of les Messieurs. Theo had developed a profound distaste for Bouguereau and the academicians; his sympathies were all with the young innovators. Every day he did what he could to persuade les Messieurs to exhibit the new paintings and educate the public to buy. Les Messieurs thought the innovators mad, childish, and completely without technique. Theo thought them the future masters.
Christine remained upstairs in the attic bedroom while the brothers met in the studio. When their first greetings were over, Theo said, “I had to come on business, too, but I must confess that my primary purpose in The Hague is to dissuade you from establishing any permanent relationship with this woman. First of all, what is she like?”
“Do you remember our old nurse at Zundert, Leen Verman?”
“Yes.”
“Sien is that kind of person. She is just an ordinary woman of the people, yet for me she has something sublime. Whoever loves one ordinary, commonplace person, and is loved by her, is already happy, notwithstanding the dark side of life. It was the feeling of being of some use that brought me to myself again and made me revive. I did not seek for it, but it found me. Sien puts up with all the worries and troubles of a painter’s life, and is so willing to pose that I think I shall become a better artist with her than if I had married Kay.”
Theo walked about the studio and finally spoke while staring intently at a water-colour. “The only thing I can’t understand is how you could fall in love with this woman while you were so desperately in love with Kay.”
“I didn’t fall in love, Theo, not immediately. Because Kay turned me down, should all my human feelings be extinguished? When you come here you do not find me discouraged and melancholy, but you come into a new studio and a home in full swing; no mysterious studio, but one that is rooted in real life—a studio with a cradle and a baby’s high chair—where there is no stagnation, but where everything pushes and urges and stirs to activity. To me it is as clear as day that one must feel what one draws, that one must live in the reality of family life if one wishes to express intimately that family life.”
“You know I never draw class distinctions, Vincent, but do you think it wise . . .?”
“No, I don’t think I’ve lowered or dishonoured myself,” interrupted Vincent, “because I feel my work lies in the heart of the people, that I must keep close to the ground, grasp life to the quick, and make progress through many cares and troubles.”
“I don’t dispute all that.” Theo crossed swiftly and stood looking down at his brother. “But why does it necessitate a marriage?”
“Because there is a promise of marriage between her and me. I don’t want you to consider her as a mistress, or as somebody with whom I am having a liaison without caring for the consequences. That promise of marriage is twofold; firstly a promise of civil marriage as soon as circumstances will permit, but secondly, it is a promise meanwhile to help each other, to cherish each other as if we were already married, to share everything together.”
“But surely you will wait a bit before you go into the civil marriage?”
“Yes, Theo, if you ask me. We will postpone it until I earn a hundred and fifty francs by selling my work, and your help will no longer be necessary. I promise you I shall not marry her until my drawing has progressed so far that I’m independent. By degrees, as I begin to earn, you can send me less each month, and at last I will not need your money any longer. Then we will talk about a civil marriage.”
“That sounds like the wisest thing to do.”
“Here she comes, Theo. For my sake, try to think of her only as a wife and mother! For that’s what she really is.”
Christine came down the stairs at the rear of the studio. She had on a neat black dress, her hair was carefully combed back, and the touch of colour in her face almost obliterated the pock marks. She had become pretty in a homely sort of way. Vincent’s love had surrounded her with an aura of confidence and well being. She shook hands with Theo quietly, asked if he wouldn’t have a cup of tea, and insisted that he remain for supper. She sat in her easy chair by the window, sewing and rocking the cradle. Vincent ran excitedly back and forth across the studio, showing charcoal figures, street scenes in water-colour, group studies hammered on with a carpenter’s pencil. He wanted Theo to see the progress of his work.
Theo had faith that some day Vincent would become a great painter, but he was never quite sure he liked the things Vincent had done . . . as yet. Theo was a discriminating amateur, carefully trained in the art of judging, but he never could make up his mind just what he thought of his brother’s work. For him, Vincent was always in a state of becoming, never in the state of having arrived.
“If you begin to feel the need to work in oil,” he said, after Vincent had shown him all his studies and spoken of his craving, “why don’t you begin? What are you waiting for?”
“For the assurance that my drawing is good enough. Mauve and Tersteeg say I don’t know how . . .”
“. . . and Weissenbruch says you do. You’re the one who must be the final judge. If you feel that you’ve got to express yourself in deeper colour now, the time is ripe. Jump in!”
“But, Theo, the expense! Those confounded tubes cost their weight in gold.”
“Meet me at my hotel tomorrow morning at ten. The sooner you begin sending me oil canvases, the quicker I’ll get my money out of this investment.”
During supper Theo and Christine chatted animatedly. When Theo left, he turned to Vincent on the stairs and said in French, “She’s nice, really nice. I had no idea!”
They made a strange contrast, walking up the Wagenstraat the following morning; the younger brother carefully groomed, his boots polished, linen starched, suit pressed, necktie neatly in place, black bowler hat at a jaunty angle, soft brown beard carefully trimmed, walking along with a well poised, even pace; and the other, with worn out boots, patched trousers that did not match the tight coat, no necktie, an absurd peasant’s cap stuck on the top of his head, beard scrambling out in furious red whorls, hitching along with jerky, uneven steps, waving his arms and making excited gestures as he talked.
They were not conscious of the picture they made.
Theo took Vincent to Goupils to buy the tubes of paint, brushes, and canvas. Tersteeg respected and admired Theo; he wanted to like and understand Vincent. When he heard what they had come for, he insisted upon finding all the material himself and advising Vincent on the merits of the various pigments.
Theo and Vincent tramped the six kilometres across the dunes to Scheveningen. A fishing smack was just coming in. Near the monument there was a little wooden shed in which a man sat on the lookout. As soon as the boat came in view the fellow appeared with a large flag. He was followed by a crowd of children. A few minutes after he had waved his flag, a man on an old horse arrived to go and fetch the anchor. The group was joined by a number of men and women who came pouring over the sand hill from the village to welcome the crew. When the boat was near enough, the man on horseback went into the water and returned with the anchor. Then the fishermen were brought ashore on the backs of fellows with high rubber boots, and with each arrival there was a great cheer of welcome. When they were all ashore and the horses had dragged the bark up on the beach, the whole troop marched home over the sand hill in caravan style, with the man on the horse towering over them like a tall spectre.
“This is the sort of thing I want to do with my paints,” said Vincent.
“Let me have some canvases as soon as you become satisfied with your work. I might be able to find purchasers in Paris.”
“Oh, Theo, you must! You must begin to sell me!”
12
WHEN THEO LEFT, Vincent began experimenting with his pigments. He did three oil studies; one a row of pollard willows behind the Geest bridge, another of a cinder path, and a third of the vegetable gardens of Meerdervoort where a man in a blue smock was picking up potatoes. The field was of white sand, partly dug up, still covered with rows of dried stalks with green weeds between. In the distance there were dark green trees and a few roofs. When he looked at his work in the studio, he was elated; he was certain that no one could possibly know they were his first efforts. The drawing, the backbone of painting and the skeleton that supported all the rest, was accurate and true to life. He was surprised a little because he had thought his first things would be failures.
He was busy painting a sloping ground in the woods, covered with moldered, dry beech leaves. The ground was light and dark reddish brown, made more so by the shadows of trees which threw streaks over it and sometimes half blotted it out. The question was to get the depth of colour, the enormous force and solidness of the ground. While painting, he perceived for the first time how much light there was still in that darkness. He had to keep that light, and keep at the same time the depth of rich colour.
The ground was a carpet of deep reddish brown in the glow of an autumn evening sun, tempered by the trees. Young birches sprang up, caught light on one side, and were sparkling green there, the shadowy sides of the stems were warm, deep black-green. Behind the saplings, behind the brownish red soil was a very delicate sky, bluish grey, warm, hardly blue, all aglow. Against it was a hazy border of green and a network of little stems and yellowish leaves. A few figures of wood gatherers were wandering around like dark masses of mysterious shadow. The white cap of a woman, who was bending to reach a dry branch, stood out brusquely against the deep red-brown of the ground. A dark silhouette of a man appeared above the underbrush; moulded against the sky, the figure was large and full of poetry.
While painting he said to himself, “I must not go away before there is something of an autumn evening feeling in it, something mysterious, something serious.” But the light was fading. He had to work quickly. The figures he painted in at once by a few strong strokes with a resolute brush. It struck him how firmly the little tree stems were rooted in the ground. He tried to paint them in, but the ground was already so sticky that a brush stroke was lost in it. He tried again and again, desperately, for it was getting darker. At last he saw he was defeated; no brush could suggest anything in that rich loam-brown of the earth. With a blind intuition he flung the brush away, squeezed the roots and trunks on the canvas from the tubes of paint, picked up another brush, and modelled the thick, coloured oil with the handle.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, as night finally claimed the woods, “now they stand there, rising from the ground, strongly rooted in it. I have said what I wanted to say!”
Weissenbruch looked in that evening. “Come along with me to Pulchri. We’re having some tableaux and charades.”
Vincent had not forgotten his last visit. “No, thanks, I don’t care to leave my wife.”
Weissenbruch walked over to Christine, kissed her hand, asked after her health, and played with the baby quite jovially. He evidently had no recollection of the last thing he had said to them.
“Let me see some of your new sketches, Vincent.”
Vincent complied only too gladly. Weissenbruch picked out a study of Monday’s market, where they were pulling down the stands; another of a line waiting in front of the soup kitchen; another of three old men at the insane asylum; another of a fishing smack at Scheveningen with the anchor raised, and a fifth that Vincent had made on his knees, in the mud of the dunes during a driving rain storm.
“Are these for sale? I’d like to buy them.”
“Is this another of your poor jokes, Weissenbruch?”
“I never joke about painting. These studies are superb. How much do you want?”
Vincent said, “Name your own price,” numbly, afraid that he was going to be ridiculed at any moment.
“Very well, how about five francs apiece? Twenty-five for the lot.”
Vincent’s eyes shot open. “That’s too much! My Uncle Cor only paid me two and a half francs.”
“He cheated you, my boy. All dealers cheat you. Some day they will sell for five thousand francs. What do you say, is it a deal?”
“Weissenbruch, sometimes you’re an angel and sometimes you’re a fiend!”
“That’s for variety, so my friends won’t get tired of me.”
He took out a wallet and handed Vincent twenty-five francs. “Now come along with me to Pulchri. You need a little entertainment. We’re having a farce by Tony Offermans. It will do you good to laugh.”
So Vincent went along. The hall of the club was crowded with men all smoking cheap and strong tobacco. The first tableau was after an etching by Nicholas Maes, The Stable at Bethlehem, very good on tone and colour, but decidedly off in expression. The other was after Rembrandt’s Isaac Blessing Jacob, with a splendid Rebecca looking on to see if her trick would succeed. The close air gave Vincent a headache. He left before the farce and went home, composing the sentences of a letter as he walked.
He told his father as much about the story of Christine as he thought expedient, enclosed Weissenbruch’s twenty-five francs, and asked Theodorus to come to The Hague as his guest.
A week later his father arrived. His blue eyes were fading, his step becoming slower. The last time they had been together, Theodorus had ordered his oldest son from the house. In the interim they had exchanged friendly letters. Theodorus and Anna Cornelia had sent several bundles of underwear, outer clothing, cigars, homemade cake, and an occasional ten franc note. Vincent did not know how his father would take to Christine. Sometimes men were understanding and generous, sometimes they were blind and vicious.
He did not think his father could remain indifferent and raise objections—near a cradle. A cradle was not like anything else; there was no fooling with it. His father would have to forgive whatever there might have been in Christine’s past.
Theodorus had a large bundle under his arm. Vincent opened it, drew out a warm coat for Christine, and knew that everything was all right. After she had gone upstairs to the attic bedroom, Theodorus and Vincent sat together in the studio.
“Vincent,” said his father, “there was one thing you did not mention in your letter. Is the baby yours?”
“No. She was carrying it when I met her.”
“Where is its father?”
“He deserted her.” He did not think it necessary to explain the child’s anonymity.
“But you will marry her, Vincent, won’t you? It’s not right to live this way.”
“I agree. I want to go through the legal ceremony as soon as possible. But Theo and I decided that it would be better to wait until I am earning a hundred and fifty francs a month through my drawing.”
