Vincent and Theo: Gallery Two–Gallery Four

Considering that Dorus makes a little over a thousand guilders a year, it’s a huge expense for the Van Gogh family, one Dorus will later incur for Theo and Cor as well.

In a great break from what he learned at 26 Markt, in a potentially cataclysmic departure from his parents’ beliefs, he tells his fellow boarders that he is an atheist.

Tersteeg does betray his confidence, and when the news of his indiscretion gets back to his family, Ma and Pa are horrified.

On a visit home Pa lectures him against sin and sends him back to The Hague with religious missives to read.

It will broaden his experience in some ways, but it will also curtail his contact with clients.

The art establishment finds these artists too avant-garde in their use of light, a bright palette, visible brushstrokes, unusual composition, and strange angles.

The art establishment finds these artists too avant-garde in their use of light, a bright palette, visible brushstrokes, unusual composition, and strange angles.

He acclimates quickly to the work at this Goupil branch.

They are perhaps even more wily than that, hoping for a match.

The error will be perpetuated for decades in books and even a movie.

Just as he idealizes Caroline, he paints the Loyers as the perfect mother and daughter.

Vincent knows there are members of the family who suffer from melancholia, from mood swings, extreme behavior, eccentricities.

We can’t go back in time and diagnose him, but from here it looks like a form of epilepsy or, most likely, the beginnings of bipolar disorder, which is also known as manic depression.

Vincent is moody and erratic, and not doing well at his job.

Two brothers in love with two sisters.
Unrequited love.

Alluding to their beloved Michelet’s lost love, Vincent writes, “She stayed with me 30 years, returning to me incessantly.”

“Giving in to melancholy is not conducive to the generation of energy.”

He also tries to console him with religious precepts, reminding him that every life has its “trials and tribulations.”

He also tries to console him with religious precepts, reminding him that every life has its “trials and tribulations.”

But Theo finds no solace in religion.

He has lost all passion for the art business and has replaced it with a religious fanaticism unlike anything they had learned as boys in Zundert.

But Vincent’s newfound religious zeal really worries them. Their worry turns to anger when they find out that Vincent is neglecting his work at Goupils.

Vincent writes to Pa with the news, and Pa says to apologize. Vincent does. But his boss doesn’t relent. Vincent will be out of a job in a few months.

“When you were baptized you were adorned with the first May rose to bloom in Zundert. The christening gown which was decorated with the tiny rose no longer fits you and the rose is long since wilted; nevertheless it remains a symbol of the great charm and great affability which may, we pray be qualities granted to you in life.”

It’s as though the image of the first baby Vincent emerges from under Vincent's, a pentimento uncovered, and in their parents’ eyes the portrait of that hoped-for “good boy” melds with Theo's.

He worries that Mr. Stokes is too hard on his pupils, withholding their food and drink in the evening if they’ve been too boisterous.

Vincent writes, “Don’t worry about your wanton life, as you call it, just go quietly on your way. You’re purer than I, and will probably get there sooner and better.”

But when those parents find out Theo's secret, they’re distraught.

“Would you be so kind as to do another work of mercy and have his hair metamorphosed by a clever barber—here in Etten we don’t have such people. I suppose a Hague hairdresser might be able to do something about it, therefore coax him into coming with you to one.”

He doesn’t meet anyone, but the distance gives him perspective.

He chafes at the idea of going back to the Netherlands.

The Borinage has farms as well as mines (the name comes from the word boeren, farmers), but it’s not a farming landscape like the one Vincent is used to. It’s stark.

“There are sunken roads here, overgrown with thorn-bushes and with old, twisted trees with their gnarled roots, which look exactly like that road in the etching by Dürer,” Vincent tells Theo, referring to Knight, Death and the Devil.

He writes to Theo only about art, about how he tries to see beauty in the bleak surroundings.

While Vincent is rejoicing in poverty, shedding his clothes, his possessions, his membership in middle-class society, Theo is honing his talents as an art dealer and becoming more and more ambitious.

He suggests Vincent could be a lithographer, design letterheads.

When the prodigal son comes home in Luke 15:20, “His father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

He has to bivouac out in the open for three nights.

He is at the end of his possibilities and, as he will tell Theo later, is at “a point of destitution such that one doesn’t even have a roof over one’s head and must tramp on and tramp on like a vagabond into infinity without finding either rest or food or shelter anywhere, moreover without the possibility of doing any work.”

He is at the end of his possibilities and, as he will tell Theo later, is at “a point of destitution such that one doesn’t even have a roof over one’s head and must tramp on and tramp on like a vagabond into infinity without finding either rest or food or shelter anywhere, moreover without the possibility of doing any work.”