Contents

Preface 11

Introduction 12

Note to the Reader 14

Vincent van Gogh’s Stay in Auvers-sur-Oise 17

May 20–July 29, 1890

Paintings and Studies by Vincent van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise 69

May 20–July 29, 1890

Johanna Bonger’s Legacy 249

October 4, 1862–September 2, 1925

Chronology 292

Photography Credits 293

Index 301
 more correct to say he sold everything. That is the very essence
of his agreement with Theo. The latter sent him money, and
Vincent sent him paintings in exchange. These works, as
Vincent would constantly repeat, were his brother’s property;
they belonged to him because he had paid for them.
No other painter of his time was able to make such a bargain.
Theo was very well paid, and he could afford to send his brother
close to 200 francs per month, a sum that he often supple-
mented for occasional expenses that arose with such regularity
as to lose all “occasional” characteristics. In order to fully under-
stand Vincent’s financial situation, we need to simply compare
fig. 18 him to “Postman” Roulin, who was not really a postman, but a
warehouse “stockman” or “courier.” It was a modest position,
but the 135 francs per month that it paid was enough for him
to feed his wife and three children. The discussion of Vincent’s
supposed poverty should end with this simple observation.
Even if Vincent presented himself in a rather flattering light
in his letter to Mr. and Mrs. Ginoux, it remains a fact that he
had recently shown his work in Brussels and in Paris, and
that the laudatory criticism from Albert Aurier in Le Mercure
de France and Isaacson in the Low Countries were starting
to make him known among the more enlightened members
of the art world. This makes a second well-established myth
crumble as well: that van Gogh was misunderstood. How can
one be misunderstood if one is completely unknown? How
many times does one read that van Gogh’s contemporaries
understood nothing of his art, that they held it in contempt,
that they roundly rejected it? The few exceptions referred to
above, perhaps a dozen paintings or so in all, do not offset the
fact that the vast majority of van Gogh’s masterpieces had not
been seen by anyone aside from Theo. Most of the lucky few
who had the privilege of seeing his work close up, at Theo’s or
while they were drying in his studio in Arles or in Saint-Rémy
had only good things to say. Even today, with the Internet, fig. 19
it can take five years or more for an artist to become recog-
nized, and this does not shock anyone. Who today is recog-
nized at the age of thirty-seven on an equal footing with the
memory that he will leave after his death? So how can we have
expected the “public” to give a proper value to masterpieces
like Sunflowers in a Vase (fig. 19) or Starry Night over the Rhône (fig.
18) barely eighteen months after their completion?
The myth of Vincent van Gogh’s lack of recognition is absurd,
and what is more, it presumes with an improbable arrogance
that we are better capable of judging his work today than were
his ignorant contemporaries, as if we had invented beauty. But
what is more, this myth entails the denial of two essential quali-
ties of van Gogh’s paintings: their accessibility and the imme-
diacy of the effects they produce. These qualities, of course, did
not take up residence in the paintings after his death.
34
25th day Do you remember our conversations of old in Arles when it
was a question of founding the studio of the tropics. I’m on the
Paul Gauguin to Vincent point of carrying out this plan, if I obtain a small sum necessary
Paris to found the establishment. I’ll then go to Madagascar with
June 13, 1890 a gentle, moneyless tribe that lives from the soil. I have very
precise information from various sides. I’ll turn a little earthen
and wooden hut into a comfortable house with my ten fingers;
I’ll plant all things for food there myself, hens, cows etc . . . and
in a short time I’ll have my material life assured there. Those
who want to come there later will find all the materials there for
working with very few expenses. And the studio of the tropics
will perhaps form the St. John the Baptist of the painting of the
future, reimmersed there in a more natural, more primitive and
above all less putrefied life.
The cold and calculating Gauguin, who had been living with
his friend Amédée Schuffenecker since February 1890, starts
his letter with some unconvincing apologies. He expresses
regret at not having written before to his “friend.” He has a
new project and is looking for a way to finance it. The van Gogh
brothers, for whom he has but little respect, had the virtues of
both being financially secure and of admiring his work. Theo
had already bought and sold some of his paintings. Vincent still
thought of him as an immensely talented painter, displaying a
level of foresight that Gauguin did not share.
The painter of the Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with
the Angel) (fig. 20) plays to Vincent’s every emotion: his love of
work on the land, his dreams of a new art, a biblical refer-
ence, economy of means, simplicity . . . Before setting out
his arguments he brings Vincent back to the time when the
two painters dreamed of wider vistas together in Arles, the
town Gauguin had fled, never to return, when his friend’s
dream turned into a nightmare. The same person who paid
more attention to his personal appearance than anyone else
now relies on artifice bordering on the ridiculous to present
himself in this hypocritical letter as a natural man, seeking to
sacrifice himself on the altar of the fine arts, so selfless he can
only hope to pave the way for the coming of a Saint John the
fig. 20 Baptist of painting . . . Fortunately Vincent was much more
clear-sighted than his colleague, and did not seriously consider
participating in this project.
Vincent had become resigned to his fate, which he does not
judge too harshly. He knows he has suffered greatly, but he
is just as aware that this suffering was a deliberate choice. A
decade previously, when he was still convinced that he should
become a pastor or evangelical, suffering had been one of
35
 more correct to say he sold everything. That is the very essence
of his agreement with Theo. The latter sent him money, and
Vincent sent him paintings in exchange. These works, as
Vincent would constantly repeat, were his brother’s property;
they belonged to him because he had paid for them.
No other painter of his time was able to make such a bargain.
Theo was very well paid, and he could afford to send his brother
close to 200 francs per month, a sum that he often supple-
mented for occasional expenses that arose with such regularity
as to lose all “occasional” characteristics. In order to fully under-
stand Vincent’s financial situation, we need to simply compare
fig. 18 him to “Postman” Roulin, who was not really a postman, but a
warehouse “stockman” or “courier.” It was a modest position,
but the 135 francs per month that it paid was enough for him
to feed his wife and three children. The discussion of Vincent’s
supposed poverty should end with this simple observation.
Even if Vincent presented himself in a rather flattering light
in his letter to Mr. and Mrs. Ginoux, it remains a fact that he
had recently shown his work in Brussels and in Paris, and
that the laudatory criticism from Albert Aurier in Le Mercure
de France and Isaacson in the Low Countries were starting
to make him known among the more enlightened members
of the art world. This makes a second well-established myth
crumble as well: that van Gogh was misunderstood. How can
one be misunderstood if one is completely unknown? How
many times does one read that van Gogh’s contemporaries
understood nothing of his art, that they held it in contempt,
that they roundly rejected it? The few exceptions referred to
above, perhaps a dozen paintings or so in all, do not offset the
fact that the vast majority of van Gogh’s masterpieces had not
been seen by anyone aside from Theo. Most of the lucky few
who had the privilege of seeing his work close up, at Theo’s or
while they were drying in his studio in Arles or in Saint-Rémy
had only good things to say. Even today, with the Internet, fig. 19
it can take five years or more for an artist to become recog-
nized, and this does not shock anyone. Who today is recog-
nized at the age of thirty-seven on an equal footing with the
memory that he will leave after his death? So how can we have
expected the “public” to give a proper value to masterpieces
like Sunflowers in a Vase (fig. 19) or Starry Night over the Rhône (fig.
18) barely eighteen months after their completion?
The myth of Vincent van Gogh’s lack of recognition is absurd,
and what is more, it presumes with an improbable arrogance
that we are better capable of judging his work today than were
his ignorant contemporaries, as if we had invented beauty. But
what is more, this myth entails the denial of two essential quali-
ties of van Gogh’s paintings: their accessibility and the imme-
diacy of the effects they produce. These qualities, of course, did
not take up residence in the paintings after his death.
34
25th day Do you remember our conversations of old in Arles when it
was a question of founding the studio of the tropics. I’m on the
Paul Gauguin to Vincent point of carrying out this plan, if I obtain a small sum necessary
Paris to found the establishment. I’ll then go to Madagascar with
June 13, 1890 a gentle, moneyless tribe that lives from the soil. I have very
precise information from various sides. I’ll turn a little earthen
and wooden hut into a comfortable house with my ten fingers;
I’ll plant all things for food there myself, hens, cows etc . . . and
in a short time I’ll have my material life assured there. Those
who want to come there later will find all the materials there for
working with very few expenses. And the studio of the tropics
will perhaps form the St. John the Baptist of the painting of the
future, reimmersed there in a more natural, more primitive and
above all less putrefied life.
The cold and calculating Gauguin, who had been living with
his friend Amédée Schuffenecker since February 1890, starts
his letter with some unconvincing apologies. He expresses
regret at not having written before to his “friend.” He has a
new project and is looking for a way to finance it. The van Gogh
brothers, for whom he has but little respect, had the virtues of
both being financially secure and of admiring his work. Theo
had already bought and sold some of his paintings. Vincent still
thought of him as an immensely talented painter, displaying a
level of foresight that Gauguin did not share.
The painter of the Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with
the Angel) (fig. 20) plays to Vincent’s every emotion: his love of
work on the land, his dreams of a new art, a biblical refer-
ence, economy of means, simplicity . . . Before setting out
his arguments he brings Vincent back to the time when the
two painters dreamed of wider vistas together in Arles, the
town Gauguin had fled, never to return, when his friend’s
dream turned into a nightmare. The same person who paid
more attention to his personal appearance than anyone else
now relies on artifice bordering on the ridiculous to present
himself in this hypocritical letter as a natural man, seeking to
sacrifice himself on the altar of the fine arts, so selfless he can
only hope to pave the way for the coming of a Saint John the
fig. 20 Baptist of painting . . . Fortunately Vincent was much more
clear-sighted than his colleague, and did not seriously consider
participating in this project.
Vincent had become resigned to his fate, which he does not
judge too harshly. He knows he has suffered greatly, but he
is just as aware that this suffering was a deliberate choice. A
decade previously, when he was still convinced that he should
become a pastor or evangelical, suffering had been one of
35
 On May 20, 1890, Vincent van Gogh left Paris, where he had
just spent three days with his brother Theo, his sister-in-law
Johanna, and little Vincent, his four-month-old godson. He
was thirty-seven years old. He was an accomplished artist, who
had exhibited his work and was admired by Signac, Monet,
Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec. The stipend that he received
from his brother provided him with enough material comfort
that he did not need to be worried about keeping a roof over
his head, about his meals, his paints, or his canvases. He had
just spent a year in a sanatorium and had left it feeling cured
of the mental illness that had periodically laid him low. Vincent
had a specific project in mind. He felt ready to take on the
challenge he had set for himself: to paint in the North with a
new eye, transformed by two years spent in the burning sun
of the Midi. As a precautionary measure, he would stay in a
village that was also home to a doctor, Doctor Gachet, who
was a friend to painters and had agreed to put his expertise
at Vincent’s disposal. Van Gogh would spend seventy days in
Auvers-sur-Oise. He would paint almost eighty canvases there
before ending his life.
This period is often described as a tragic one for Vincent. But
today, based on a critical reading of his letters, we can rule out any
simplistic image of the painter as tormented. In Auvers-sur-Oise,
Vincent van Gogh was possessed above all of a furious desire and
fig. 50 an absolute need to paint.
Not everyone is capable of painting close to eighty paintings
in seventy days. Vincent van Gogh managed to do so due to
the alignment of several fortuitous circumstances that enables
him to develop his work. First of all, it was the result of ten
years of daily effort, at once physical, creative, and intellectual.
Second, after a year of rest in the sanatorium in Saint-Rémy-de-
Provence, Vincent was in Olympic form. His physical condition
was further enhanced by a powerful motivation: to continue to
show his family and his friends in Paris that his art deserved
all his energies and all his time, which he wanted to pursue in
a village near Paris with its own cultural significance. Finally,
Doctor Gachet’s presence afforded him a measure of security,
allowing him to take risks as he expanded the limits of painting
as a medium, in a state of euphoria made possible by the recent
public recognition of his talent.
Thus all the pieces were in place for a veritable explosion
of production and creativity in Auvers, both resulting from
and enabling the method of painting that he had patiently
constructed. This method was innovative, even revolutionary:
the Dutchman had managed to evolve past the pointillism he
had assimilated in Paris in 1886 to achieve a new, modern way
of uniting form and color.
70
Seurat’s pointillism, for example, that Vincent had
familiarized himself with in 1887, consists of the juxtapo-
sition of points of color whose relations and proportions
combine to create an optical effect. In this technique, form
emerges out of a mixture of colors. In Arles, van Gogh
often drew with sharpened reeds, which are notably not
able to hold much ink.
Since the reed could not be used to draw long lines,
Vincent juxtaposed short strokes and points to build up
forms or to indicate materials. He achieved similar effects
using small brushes full of color and placing similarly short
strokes or points one next to the other on canvas, with great
confidence and without hesitation or subsequent touch-up.
Little by little, these strokes became figurative. They became
branches, leaves, little tufts applied in a single touch, at
once form and color: they signify. In order to realize the
chromatic concepts that he calculated well in advance and
to avoid mixing colors on his palette, van Gogh had to envi-
sion his exact needs in terms of tubes of paint.
The results of this method and of this extraordinary drive
to work are collected in their entirety in the following pages,
with the exception of the drawings. The fame, the success,
and the financial value attached to these works is fully
justified. They would be equally striking even if van Gogh
had only ever painted in Auvers. Almost sixty of the paint-
ings from his stay there can now be found in the greatest
museums in the world. Finally, Vincent’s suicide, often
considered a tragedy without equal, is not actually so excep-
tional. Gérard de Nerval, Robert Schumann, Stefan Zweig,
Primo Levi, Maria Callas, Ernest Hemingway, Nicolas de
Staël, Ian Curtis, Frida Kahlo, Mark Rothko, Émile Cioran,
Guy Debord . . . the list of artists who have killed themselves
is unfortunately a long one. And let us keep in mind that all
of Vincent’s work was sold in his lifetime, not just one soli-
tary painting as we so often hear. Vincent sold everything
to his patron, dealer, protector, and friend: Theo van Gogh.
fig. 51
Peter Knapp
71
 On May 20, 1890, Vincent van Gogh left Paris, where he had
just spent three days with his brother Theo, his sister-in-law
Johanna, and little Vincent, his four-month-old godson. He
was thirty-seven years old. He was an accomplished artist, who
had exhibited his work and was admired by Signac, Monet,
Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec. The stipend that he received
from his brother provided him with enough material comfort
that he did not need to be worried about keeping a roof over
his head, about his meals, his paints, or his canvases. He had
just spent a year in a sanatorium and had left it feeling cured
of the mental illness that had periodically laid him low. Vincent
had a specific project in mind. He felt ready to take on the
challenge he had set for himself: to paint in the North with a
new eye, transformed by two years spent in the burning sun
of the Midi. As a precautionary measure, he would stay in a
village that was also home to a doctor, Doctor Gachet, who
was a friend to painters and had agreed to put his expertise
at Vincent’s disposal. Van Gogh would spend seventy days in
Auvers-sur-Oise. He would paint almost eighty canvases there
before ending his life.
This period is often described as a tragic one for Vincent. But
today, based on a critical reading of his letters, we can rule out any
simplistic image of the painter as tormented. In Auvers-sur-Oise,
Vincent van Gogh was possessed above all of a furious desire and
fig. 50 an absolute need to paint.
Not everyone is capable of painting close to eighty paintings
in seventy days. Vincent van Gogh managed to do so due to
the alignment of several fortuitous circumstances that enables
him to develop his work. First of all, it was the result of ten
years of daily effort, at once physical, creative, and intellectual.
Second, after a year of rest in the sanatorium in Saint-Rémy-de-
Provence, Vincent was in Olympic form. His physical condition
was further enhanced by a powerful motivation: to continue to
show his family and his friends in Paris that his art deserved
all his energies and all his time, which he wanted to pursue in
a village near Paris with its own cultural significance. Finally,
Doctor Gachet’s presence afforded him a measure of security,
allowing him to take risks as he expanded the limits of painting
as a medium, in a state of euphoria made possible by the recent
public recognition of his talent.
Thus all the pieces were in place for a veritable explosion
of production and creativity in Auvers, both resulting from
and enabling the method of painting that he had patiently
constructed. This method was innovative, even revolutionary:
the Dutchman had managed to evolve past the pointillism he
had assimilated in Paris in 1886 to achieve a new, modern way
of uniting form and color.
70
Seurat’s pointillism, for example, that Vincent had
familiarized himself with in 1887, consists of the juxtapo-
sition of points of color whose relations and proportions
combine to create an optical effect. In this technique, form
emerges out of a mixture of colors. In Arles, van Gogh
often drew with sharpened reeds, which are notably not
able to hold much ink.
Since the reed could not be used to draw long lines,
Vincent juxtaposed short strokes and points to build up
forms or to indicate materials. He achieved similar effects
using small brushes full of color and placing similarly short
strokes or points one next to the other on canvas, with great
confidence and without hesitation or subsequent touch-up.
Little by little, these strokes became figurative. They became
branches, leaves, little tufts applied in a single touch, at
once form and color: they signify. In order to realize the
chromatic concepts that he calculated well in advance and
to avoid mixing colors on his palette, van Gogh had to envi-
sion his exact needs in terms of tubes of paint.
The results of this method and of this extraordinary drive
to work are collected in their entirety in the following pages,
with the exception of the drawings. The fame, the success,
and the financial value attached to these works is fully
justified. They would be equally striking even if van Gogh
had only ever painted in Auvers. Almost sixty of the paint-
ings from his stay there can now be found in the greatest
museums in the world. Finally, Vincent’s suicide, often
considered a tragedy without equal, is not actually so excep-
tional. Gérard de Nerval, Robert Schumann, Stefan Zweig,
Primo Levi, Maria Callas, Ernest Hemingway, Nicolas de
Staël, Ian Curtis, Frida Kahlo, Mark Rothko, Émile Cioran,
Guy Debord . . . the list of artists who have killed themselves
is unfortunately a long one. And let us keep in mind that all
of Vincent’s work was sold in his lifetime, not just one soli-
tary painting as we so often hear. Vincent sold everything
to his patron, dealer, protector, and friend: Theo van Gogh.
fig. 51
Peter Knapp
71
 Tuesday, June 3
So much ink has flowed on the subject of Church at Auvers
that it has become an icon of Vincent van Gogh’s work—
one that is impossible to ignore. The time and place of its
execution are incontrovertible, as the painting is described
in detail in one of his letters. Even the time of day, in this
case early- or mid-afternoon, is indicated by the position of
the church’s shadow on the grass. The size of the painting is
itself unusual—the work is painted on a larger canvas than
any other work from the time in Auvers. Perhaps van Gogh
wanted to use it because he judged that it was the most appro-
priate for this composition.

fig. 60 With that I have a larger painting of the

village church—an effect in which the building
appears purplish against a sky of a deep and
simple blue of pure cobalt, the stained-glass
windows look like ultramarine blue patches,
the roof is violet and in part orange. In the
foreground a little flowery greenery and some
sunny pink sand. It’s again almost the same
thing as the studies I did in Nuenen of the old
tower and the cemetery. Only now the color is
probably more expressive, more sumptuous.

106

Church at Auvers - oil on canvas, 94 x 74.5 cm - Musée d’Orsay, Paris

 Tuesday, June 3
So much ink has flowed on the subject of Church at Auvers
that it has become an icon of Vincent van Gogh’s work—
one that is impossible to ignore. The time and place of its
execution are incontrovertible, as the painting is described
in detail in one of his letters. Even the time of day, in this
case early- or mid-afternoon, is indicated by the position of
the church’s shadow on the grass. The size of the painting is
itself unusual—the work is painted on a larger canvas than
any other work from the time in Auvers. Perhaps van Gogh
wanted to use it because he judged that it was the most appro-
priate for this composition.

fig. 60 With that I have a larger painting of the

village church—an effect in which the building
appears purplish against a sky of a deep and
simple blue of pure cobalt, the stained-glass
windows look like ultramarine blue patches,
the roof is violet and in part orange. In the
foreground a little flowery greenery and some
sunny pink sand. It’s again almost the same
thing as the studies I did in Nuenen of the old
tower and the cemetery. Only now the color is
probably more expressive, more sumptuous.

106

Church at Auvers - oil on canvas, 94 x 74.5 cm - Musée d’Orsay, Paris

 Tuesday, June 3
I’ve done the portrait of Mr. Gachet with an expression
of melancholy which might often appear to be a grimace
to those looking at the canvas. And yet that’s what should
be painted, because then one can realize, compared to the
calm ancient portraits, how much expression there is in our
present-day heads, and passion and something like a warning
shout. Sad but gentle but clear and intelligent, that’s how
many portraits should be done, that would still have a certain
effect on people at times.
fig. 66 There are modern heads that one will go on looking
at for a long time, that one will perhaps regret a hundred
years afterwards. If I were ten years younger, with what I
know now, how much ambition I would have for working on
that. In the given conditions I can’t do very much, I neither
frequent nor would know how to frequent sufficiently the sort
of people I would like to influence.
I do hope to do your portrait one day.

112

Doctor Gachet - oil on canvas, 66 x 57 cm - private collection

 Tuesday, June 3
I’ve done the portrait of Mr. Gachet with an expression
of melancholy which might often appear to be a grimace
to those looking at the canvas. And yet that’s what should
be painted, because then one can realize, compared to the
calm ancient portraits, how much expression there is in our
present-day heads, and passion and something like a warning
shout. Sad but gentle but clear and intelligent, that’s how
many portraits should be done, that would still have a certain
effect on people at times.
fig. 66 There are modern heads that one will go on looking
at for a long time, that one will perhaps regret a hundred
years afterwards. If I were ten years younger, with what I
know now, how much ambition I would have for working on
that. In the given conditions I can’t do very much, I neither
frequent nor would know how to frequent sufficiently the sort
of people I would like to influence.
I do hope to do your portrait one day.

112

Doctor Gachet - oil on canvas, 66 x 57 cm - private collection

 June
Bank of the Oise at Auvers stands apart from the series of works
from Auvers in more than one way. First of all, its subject is an
unusual choice for van Gogh during this period. It is the only
painting that deals with polite society in any way. The scene it
shows, a fishing excursion, could have taken place some Sunday
afternoon. The figures it contains recall Marguerite Gachet (p. 175)
and the young girl portrayed in the middle of the fields (p. 179),
but all these women really have in common with the others is
to be wearing a hat and a white dress, which was hardly unusual
for the time. The brightly painted skiffs enable combinations
of complementary colors. The yellow boat in the foreground
reinforces the blue of the second boat, and the green of the
fig. 76 third brings out the red of the fourth. The painting is simply
composed, with a horizon two-thirds of the way up. The space
occupied by the Oise counterbalances this horizon’s height by
extending across the lower third of the painting. The skiffs are
arranged in a fan-like manner. The last one is equipped with a
sail and is painted bright red, drawing the eye to the background
and giving depth to the painting. As is often the case, what
appears simple in van Gogh is in fact the result of meticulous
work and very balanced framing. The painting is not mentioned
in the correspondence.

132

Bank of the Oise at Auvers - oil on canvas, 73.3 x 93.7 cm - Detroit Institute of Arts
 June
Bank of the Oise at Auvers stands apart from the series of works
from Auvers in more than one way. First of all, its subject is an
unusual choice for van Gogh during this period. It is the only
painting that deals with polite society in any way. The scene it
shows, a fishing excursion, could have taken place some Sunday
afternoon. The figures it contains recall Marguerite Gachet (p. 175)
and the young girl portrayed in the middle of the fields (p. 179),
but all these women really have in common with the others is
to be wearing a hat and a white dress, which was hardly unusual
for the time. The brightly painted skiffs enable combinations
of complementary colors. The yellow boat in the foreground
reinforces the blue of the second boat, and the green of the
fig. 76 third brings out the red of the fourth. The painting is simply
composed, with a horizon two-thirds of the way up. The space
occupied by the Oise counterbalances this horizon’s height by
extending across the lower third of the painting. The skiffs are
arranged in a fan-like manner. The last one is equipped with a
sail and is painted bright red, drawing the eye to the background
and giving depth to the painting. As is often the case, what
appears simple in van Gogh is in fact the result of meticulous
work and very balanced framing. The painting is not mentioned
in the correspondence.

132

Bank of the Oise at Auvers - oil on canvas, 73.3 x 93.7 cm - Detroit Institute of Arts
 Early July
Child with Orange is inseparable from van Gogh’s deep convic-
tions about his brother’s living conditions and the welfare of
his family. Little Vincent, named in honor of his uncle, had
experienced health problems in June. Theo’s wife Jo had diffi-
culties breastfeeding the child. In order to compensate for the
shortage of mother’s milk, Theo had arranged for a donkey to
be brought to the house several times a day, at regular inter-
vals. This situation scandalized Vincent, who was convinced
that a stay in the country, along with the effects of country
air, would stimulate his sister-in-law’s lactation. In his letters,
the painter repeatedly expressed his concerns for his little
nephew and his desire to see him grow up in a healthy, forti-
fying environment. The portrait he made of a young blonde
child with rosy cheeks, a broad smile, and a peaceful expres-
sion, surrounded by flowers, was no doubt intended to lend
support to his arguments. The red in the child’s cheeks is
heightened by the dominant green tones of the background,
and the color of the orange completes the balance between
the flowers, her hair, and her blue dress. The fruit is a symbol
of health, of the bounty of nature and of fair weather. It sits
in the firm grip of chubby little hands. A few yellow flowers in
the foreground give depth to the ensemble.

188

Child with Orange - oil on canvas, 51 x 50 cm - private collection

 Early July
Child with Orange is inseparable from van Gogh’s deep convic-
tions about his brother’s living conditions and the welfare of
his family. Little Vincent, named in honor of his uncle, had
experienced health problems in June. Theo’s wife Jo had diffi-
culties breastfeeding the child. In order to compensate for the
shortage of mother’s milk, Theo had arranged for a donkey to
be brought to the house several times a day, at regular inter-
vals. This situation scandalized Vincent, who was convinced
that a stay in the country, along with the effects of country
air, would stimulate his sister-in-law’s lactation. In his letters,
the painter repeatedly expressed his concerns for his little
nephew and his desire to see him grow up in a healthy, forti-
fying environment. The portrait he made of a young blonde
child with rosy cheeks, a broad smile, and a peaceful expres-
sion, surrounded by flowers, was no doubt intended to lend
support to his arguments. The red in the child’s cheeks is
heightened by the dominant green tones of the background,
and the color of the orange completes the balance between
the flowers, her hair, and her blue dress. The fruit is a symbol
of health, of the bounty of nature and of fair weather. It sits
in the firm grip of chubby little hands. A few yellow flowers in
the foreground give depth to the ensemble.

188

Child with Orange - oil on canvas, 51 x 50 cm - private collection

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