let832
Metadata
- Source XML:
let832.xml - Title: To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 23 December 1889.
- Generated: 2026-01-16T18:45:25Z
Letter text (plain)
Ma chère soeur, j’ajoute encore à la hâte un mot pour toi, il y a juste un an que j’ai eu cette attaque / j’ai certes aucune raison pour m’en plaindre trop alors qu’actuellement cela va mieux. Mais de temps à autre il est à craindre que cela revienne pourtant. Et cela laisse la tête dans un état latent de sensibilité _ J’espère que tu aimeras un peu une toile que je fais pour la mère et toi de ces jours ci _ C’est une repetition d’un tableau pour Theo / des femmes recoltant des olives. De cette derniere quinzaine j’ai travaillé dur sans cesse _ Connais tu la poésie que je t’écris ci contre? Il y a un tableau que Whistler a fait de sa mère qui est comme cela. Mais surtout dans nos vieux tableaux Hollandais nous trouvons cela parfois _ Lorsque je pense à la mère elle me parait être ainsi elle aussi _ Il ne fait pas toujours bien gai ici et mes compagnons d’infortune s’embêtent assez souvent mais il y a beaucoup de resignation ici et de la patience. Mais beaucoup d’entre eux ne font rien / ils restent absorbés toute la journée et moi je crois quelquefois que s’ils etaient dans un asile où le travail manuel etait obligatoire ils s’en trouveraient mieux. A bientôt / en pensée je t’embrasse _ t. à t. Vincent. Who is the maid my spirit seeks Through cold reproof and slanders blight Has she loves roses on her cheeks Is hers an eye of calm delight? No / wan and sunk with midnight prayer Are the pale looks of her I love And if by times a light be there That light was kindled from above I choose not her mine hearts elect Amongst those that seek their makers shrine – In gems and garlands proudly decked As if themselves were things divine No / heaven but faintly warms the breast That beats beneath a broidered veil And they who come in glittering dress To mourn their frailty – yet are frail Not so the form of her I love and love because her bloom is gone But ne’er was beauties bloom so bright So touching as that forms decay That like the altars wavering light In holy lustre fades away. cheeks < cheek Corresponding to the original text. delight? < delight ne’er < neer My dear sister , In haste I’m adding a line for you, it’s exactly a year since I had that attack, I certainly have no reason to complain about it too much, as things are going better at present. But from time to time, though, it’s to be feared that it may return. And this leaves the mind in a latent state of sensitivity. I hope that you’ll quite like the canvas I’m doing for Mother and you at the moment. It’s a repetition of a painting for Theo, Women picking olives. For this past fortnight I’ve worked hard continuously. Do you know the poetry I’ve written down for you opposite? There’s a painting that Whistler did of his mother which is like that. But above all in our old Dutch paintings we find it sometimes. When I think of Mother she too appears like that to me. Life isn’t always very jolly here, and my companions in misfortune quite often feel bored, but there’s a lot of resignation and patience here. But many of them do nothing, they remain self-absorbed all day, and I sometimes think that if they were in an asylum where manual work was compulsory they would feel better for it. More soon, I kiss you in thought. Ever yours, Vincent. Who is the maid my spirit seeks Through cold reproof and slanders blight Has she loves roses on her cheek Is hers an eye of calm delight? No, wan and sunk with midnight prayer Are the pale looks of her I love And if by times a light be there That light was kindled from above I choose not her mine hearts elect Amongst those that seek their makers shrine – In gems and garlands proudly decked As if themselves were things divine No heaven but faintly warms the breast That beats beneath a broidered veil And they who come in glittering dress To mourn their frailty – yet are frail Not so the form of her I love And love because her bloom is gone But ne’er was beauties bloom so bright So touching as that forms decay That like the altars wavering light In holy lustre fades away. Read: ‘puisqu’actuellement’. Women picking olives ( F 655 / JH 1869 ) is a repetition of Women picking olives ( F 654 / JH 1868 ). Van Gogh had yet another version of it: Women picking olives ( F 656 / JH 1870 ). At the end of the letter, Van Gogh copied the poem ‘ Who is the maid? St. Jerome’s love ’ by Thomas Moore . See Moore 1910, pp. 255-256. Van Gogh deviated from the source text several times, and omitted two lines. He knew the poem from Beecher Stowe ’s We and our neighbours . See RM12 . In Saint-Rémy he recorded these lines of verse again, probably piecing them together from memory as he went along. The estate contains a sheet torn around the text, with part of a letter to Theo on the back; this sheet was probably never sent ( see RM18 ). James Abbot McNeill Whistler , Arrangement in grey and black no. 1; Portrait of the artist’s mother , 1871 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 1425 . Richard Josey made a mezzotint after it, and reproductions of it appeared in magazines and catalogues. The Illustrated London News of 21 May 1872 featured a wood engraving of it. See A. McLaren Young et al ., The paintings of James McNeill Whistler . 2 vols. New Haven and London 1980, vol. 1, pp. 59-63, cat. no. 101.