Period I

Drawing as Salvation

1880.08 - 1883.12 · Etten / The Hague / Drenthe Charcoal and pencil. Oil paint has not yet arrived.
Narrative

Before 1880, he had barely drawn seriously. He had worked at Goupil, tried to become a minister, and failed as a preacher in Borinage.

Then came nearly a year of silence. He had no income, no profession, no mission. In August 1880 he wrote to Theo: “I’ll take up my pencil again.”

The first people he drew were miners, peasants and weavers, the same people he had tried to save as a preacher. The pulpit became the canvas.

Technique

Materials

  • Pencil, charcoal, lithographic crayon
  • Reed pen and ink, occasional watercolour
  • Very little oil paint

Form

  • Hard, closed contours with little breathing room
  • Modelling by mass rather than light
  • Stiff figures and uncertain foreshortening

Format

  • Small works, mostly on paper
  • Cheap drawing paper or rough packing paper

Causes

Age He began formal drawing at twenty-seven.

Failure The Borinage preaching failure turned saving souls into drawing workers.

Textbook He systematically copied all sixty Bargue plates.

Person Anton Mauve briefly taught him oil painting in The Hague.

Representative works · Material Evidence

Sorrow Sorrow F929 / JH130 · 1882 Sien kneeling, in charcoal and watercolour; his own favourite early work. Worn Out Worn Out F863 / JH34 · 1882 An old man with his head in his hands, a motif given to a Hague poorhouse. Miners in the Snow at Dawn Miners in the Snow at Dawn F831 / JH8 · 1880 One of the earliest structurally coherent drawings.

Key letters

letter 158 · 1880-09-24 The start of the painter identity: taking up the pencil again.

letter 254 · 1882.08 A detailed description and sketch of the perspective frame.

Back to the breath line

On the breath line, this period corresponds to the silent knots of decision:

london-heartbreak London Heartbreak → borinage Borinage 1879 → miners-snow-dawn Miners in the Snow at Dawn → worn-out Worn Out → the-hague-sien The Hague and Sien →

With material eyes, “becoming a painter” is not inspiration. It is systematic labour after every other door closed.