1883-02 · The Hague · Knot of Motif

The Eliot Moment in The Hague

In The Hague in early 1883 he read George Eliot, and looked at the poor and the painters around him with something of her eye.

No painting at this knot.

Letter

In February 1883 he was reading Eliot’s Middlemarch: Eliot analyzes like Balzac or Zola, he wrote, but English situations and with an English feeling. In early March he gave the sense of a passage from Felix Holt: the people I live among have the same follies and vices as the rich, but not the refinements that make their faults more bearable. He would not have put it in those words himself, he said, but he had sometimes felt the same.
In late March he told Rappard he had re-read Felix Holt: profound things said in a plain way, and various scenes described exactly as Frank Holl would draw them; there are not many writers as thoroughly sincere and good as Eliot.

Place

The Hague. That year he lived on the Schenkweg with Sien and her family, often asking neighbours and poor people to sit for him. The soup distribution he first saw in the public soup kitchen, then re-created in his studio — covering windows so the light fell as it did there — and had models pose as the people in the queue. The painter Van der Weele came to see him; and he hoped to get to know Van der Velden, painter of peasants and fishermen, whom he had met once and who reminded him of Eliot’s Felix Holt.

The Ferocious Reader

He read Eliot by setting her beside writers and painters he knew: Middlemarch analyzes like Balzac or Zola, only English; Eliot, like Israëls and Dickens, has that ‘something different’, which lies not in the choice of subjects — that is only its consequence. Perhaps one improves by reading these books, he wrote; these books have the power to invigorate. Back in the summer of 1878, at home in Etten, he and his family had read Eliot’s Silas Marner together in the evenings — ‘the story of a weaver’, as he put it.

The Translator

Reading a novel, he could see its words as pictures. The scenes of Felix Holt, to him, were described exactly as Frank Holl would draw them — ‘a similar conception and outlook’.

Synaesthetic Precision

To describe the impression the painter Van der Velden made on him, he reached for a cloth: something broad and rough in him, ‘something like the roughness of torchon’. Then he added that this was a man who did not seek civilization in outward things but was much further inwardly than most.

Events

c. 1883-02-15 The Ferocious Reader · Letter 316
He told Theo he was reading Eliot’s Middlemarch: Eliot analyzes like Balzac or Zola, but English situations and with an English feeling.
c. 1883-03-04 The Ferocious Reader · Letter 324
The letter included a sketch of soup being handed out at a public soup kitchen. Could Theo understand, he asked, seeing this band of people together, that he felt at home with them? He then gave the sense of a passage from Felix Holt: the people I live among have the same follies and vices as the rich, but not the refinements that make their faults more bearable. He would not have put it in those words himself, he wrote, but he had sometimes felt the same.
c. 1883-03-21 The Translator · Letter 332
He told Rappard he had recently re-read Eliot’s Felix Holt, very well translated into Dutch: profound things said in a plain way, and various scenes described exactly as Frank Holl would draw them; there are not many writers as thoroughly sincere and good as Eliot. The book, he added, was less known in Holland than her Adam Bede, and her Scenes of Clerical Life were little known too.
c. 1883-03-21 The Ferocious Reader · Letter 332
In the same letter he said that Eliot, like Israëls and Dickens, had that ‘something different’ — not in the choice of subjects, which was only a consequence of it; perhaps one improves by reading these books, or, these books have the power to invigorate.
c. 1883-04-21 Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 337
He hoped to get to know the painter Van der Velden, whom he had met once and who reminded him of Eliot’s Felix Holt: something broad and rough in him, like the roughness of torchon; a man who did not seek civilization in outward things but was much further inwardly than most people.

From the Letters

Kunt gij U niet begrijpen als ge dit troepje luidjes zoo eens bij elkaar ziet/ dat ik mij met hen ’t huis voel.

Can you understand when you see this band of people together that I feel at home with them?

Letter 324

Er komen zekere levensbeschouwingen in voor die ik uitmuntend vind – diepe dingen op leuke wijs gezegd

There are certain ideas about life in it that I find outstanding — profound things said in a plain way

Letter 332

verschillende scenes zijn beschreven zóó als Frank Hol of een dergelijke ze zou teekenen_ ’t Is een dergelijke opvatting en zienswijs.

various scenes are described exactly as Frank Holl or someone like him would draw them. It’s a similar conception and outlook.

Letter 332

men wordt er misschien beter door als men die boeken leest – of/ die boeken hebben een wakkermakende kracht.

perhaps one improves by reading these books — or, these books have the power to invigorate.

Letter 332

Er is iets breeds en ruws in hem dat mij zeer bevalt – iets van het ruwe van torchon.

There’s something broad and rough in him that pleases me greatly — something like the roughness of torchon.

Letter 337

Letter Sources

Van Gogh letter records referenced on this page, linked to the Van Gogh Letters Project. vangoghletters.org