Lessons of Van Gogh
Mentoring and Coaching

If you've had a falling out with a painter, say, Signac, and you declare, "If Signac exhibits where I exhibit, I'll withdraw my paintings," and if you deride him, then it seems to me that you're not behaving as well as you could. Instead, it's wiser to take a long look before passing categorical judgments and engage in reflection. Through reflection, we see within ourselves, during times of estrangement, as many faults on our side as in our adversary, and we might find as many justifications for their actions as we desire for ourselves.

If I have a piece of advice to give you, it's to start building yourself up by eating healthy and simple food from now on, let's say for a year in advance, yes.

Your melancholy will dissipate, which might well be due to having too little blood – or impure blood, although I doubt it. It's the wretched, filthy Paris wine and the greasy fat of the steaks that cause this – my God, I had reached a point where my own blood was barely functioning at all, quite literally not working at all, as they say.

So, instead of returning to Paris, stay out in the middle of the countryside…

After the period of melancholy, you'll be stronger than before, your health will improve, and you'll find the surrounding nature so beautiful that you'll have no other desire than to paint.

I believe that your poetry will also change in the same direction as your painting.

Say, do you remember John the Baptist by Puvis [de Chavannes]? I find it amazing, and just as magical as Eugène Delacroix.

These spoken words that, as a great prodigal lord, he did not even deign to write down, represent one of the highest summits reached by art, where it becomes a creative force, a pure creative power. These reflections, my dear friend Bernard, take us very far – very far – elevating us beyond art itself. They allow us to glimpse – the art of creating life, the art of achieving immortality – alive.

Most of all, see that your blood's in order - you won't get far with anemia - painting goes slowly - better try to make your constitution as tough as old boots. ... Better live as a monk who goes to the brothel once a fortnight - I do that, it's not very poetic, my child - but anyway - I feel that it is above all my duty is to subordinate my life to painting.

And when it comes to you, I couldn't encourage you enough to take a long look at major and minor Dutchmen... Here it's not just a matter of strange precious stones, but it's a matter of sorting out marvels from among marvels... So for you, I can only say, come on, just look a little more closely than that; really, it's worth the effort a thousand times over.

It's possible that these great geniuses are just fools, and to have boundless faith and admiration for them, you'd also have to be a fool. That may well be - I would prefer my folly to the wisdom of others.

First, I must tell you about yourself, about two still lifes you painted and about the two portraits of your grandmother. Have you ever done better, have you ever been more you? Not in my opinion. The deep study of the first thing that came to mind was enough to really create. Do you know what made me love these three or four studies so much? The je ne sais quoi of something deliberate, very wise, the special quality of something steady and firm and self-confident that they showed.

For you, my poor dear friend Bernard, I have already predicted it this spring. Eat well, do the military exercise well, don't fuck too much, your painting, by not fucking too hard, will only be more vigorous. Ah, Balzac, that great and powerful artist, already told us that for modern artists, relative chastity strengthens them.

These studies, I'm talking about in the first place, you see, are the first swallow of your springtime as an artist. If we want to have a good passion for our work, we must sometimes resign ourselves to indulging sexually a little and for the rest, depending on our temperament, be soldiers or monks. The Dutch, once again, had morals and a peaceful, calm, regulated life.

You will come out of the ordeal of your service much stronger and strong enough for an entire career as an artist or – broken.

If your father had a son who was a prospector and discoverer of raw gold among the pebbles and on the pavement, your father would certainly not look down on that talent. Now, in my opinion, you have absolutely the equivalent of that. Your father, while he might regret that it [your painting] wasn't shiny new gold, minted in Louis, would set out to make a collection of your finds, and to sell them only for a reasonable price. Let him do the same thing for your paintings and drawings, which are as rare and as valuable on the market as rare stones or rare metal. That's absolutely true—a painting is as difficult to make as a large or small diamond is to find.

In the end, it will always work out because I love your talent so much that I would like to gradually make a small collection of your works, bit by bit.

For your portrait – you know – I like it a lot – I like everything you do anyway as you know – and maybe no one liked what you do as much as I did before me.

I strongly urge you to study the portrait, do as much as possible, and don't let go - we must attract the public through the portrait in the future - in my opinion, the future is in there.

No, you know how to do better than that, and you know that you must look for the possible, the logical, the true, even if you forget Parisian things such as [Charles] Baudelaire.

Last year, based on what Gauguin told me, you were working on a painting... In the foreground, a figure of a young girl in a blue or white dress, lying full length on the grass. Behind her, an edge of a beech wood, the ground covered with fallen red leaves, and the verdigrised trunks crossing it vertically. I imagine the hair as a colorful accent, in a tone complementary to the white dress: black if the clothing was white, orange if the clothing was blue. But regardless, I thought to myself, what a simple subject, and how skillfully he knows how to create elegance from nothing.

Gauguin told me about another subject [of Bernard’s], nothing but three trees, like an effect of orange foliage against a blue sky but still very clearly delineated, well divided, categorically, into planes of contrasting and pure colors — that’s the way! And when I compare that to this nightmare of a Christ in the Garden of Olives, it makes me feel sad, and I ask you again firmly with all the strength of my lungs to please become a little more of yourself again.

I'm talking to you about these two canvases, especially the first, to remind you that to give an impression of anguish, one can try to do it without aiming straight at the historic Gethsemane garden. And to depict a consoling and gentle motif, there is no need to represent the characters of the Sermon on the Mount...