Ten days in the life of Van Gogh: November 15, 1878, the good, the bad and the preacher

This article is taken from Figaro Hors-série Van Gogh, la Symphonie de l'Adieu, a special issue published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay Van Gogh, Les Derniers Jours, which retraces the life and work of the artist, from his Dutch youth to his tragic end in Auvers sur Oise.

What will Vincent do in life? The question arises all the more acutely since he stopped his studies. In 1869, he was sixteen years old. Since he doesn't know what to do, his parents take matters into their own hands. They will decide his future. They bring together a family council. In the circle that was formed, there was Uncle Cent, the art dealer from The Hague, who now lives retired from business in Princenhage, near Breda. For Uncle Cent, the problem is simple. Why wouldn’t Vincent pursue the career in which he himself has been so successful? He is ready to recommend it to Mr. Tersteeg, who manages the branch of the Goupil gallery

In 1872, Vincent received a visit from his brother Theo. He tells her about his job, about the Goupil gallery. When Theo leaves him, Vincent writes to him immediately. Then begins a long correspondence (six hundred and ninety-seven letters), which will continue throughout their lives. Few artists, like Vincent, have been driven by an obsessive need to justify themselves, to express their passions and their doubts, to reveal their most intimate crises. In May 1873, Vincent, who was transferred to the English subsidiary of Goupil

Back in England, he joined as an assistant teacher. On December 31, 1876, he found himself at his parents' house, now living in Etten. He only stayed there for three weeks and left for Dordrecht. There, from January 21 to April 30, 1877, he worked in another profession: he was a bookstore clerk. Not for a long time. He feels more and more like he has a religious vocation. He went to Amsterdam to study theology. He will be a pastor. Like his father, like his grandfather. But he abandoned his studies in July 1878. After a short stay in Etten, in August he entered an evangelist school in Laeken, near Brussels. After three months of training, he was fired on November 15, 1878. Stubborn, he was not discouraged. He leaves on his own for Borinage. He settled in Pâturages then in Wasmes where rows of gray houses stand with their soot-colored gardens. Around him, a large, treeless coal plain dotted with slag heaps, these mounds of black waste. Over this gray plain there is a sound of dirty skies. And then, there are these hundreds of men, women and children who spend their lives handling the bar and the pick in the galleries at the bottom of the earth. For them, the sun only lights up the world one day out of seven, on Sunday. Vincent wants to be as miserable as these wretches. He dresses like them. He lives in a cabin built of planks. He sleeps on a pallet. He cuts pants from miners' bags and puts on clogs. Like them. He visited the sick, taught catechism to children, and taught them to read and write. He speaks in the name of Christ. Distraught, the Protestant consistory asked Vincent to immediately cease his apostolate. Vincent packs his backpack, throws it over his shoulder. He sinks, passing forgotten, in the gray day, on the road to Brussels. Behind him, voices whisper: “We thought he was crazy, maybe he was a saint. »

“Van Gogh, the Farewell Symphony”, 164 pages, €13.90, available on newsstands and on the Figaro Store.