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Lot Essay
Around the first of March 1884, Vincent van Gogh sent a letter from Nuenen to his painter friend Anthon van Rappard (1858-1892): 'These past few days I have made a number of studies in the open air; I am sending you a little sketch of one of them'(Collected letters, R41). This fresh and engaging drawing must be the 'croquis'; indeed it seems to be done with the same pen and the same ink and on the same squared paper as the letter. Since it was done on a separate piece of paper and not an insert in the written text, it is not a letter sketch properly speaking, but a separate drawing related to the letter. Van Gogh put them together in the same envelope. The study done in the open air that Van Gogh refers to, clearly is the painting 'Parsonage garden' with the same composition and oblong proportions as this drawing, now in the Groninger Museum (F185). This drawing translates the rather gloomy and dark painting with very effective hatchings that give it an engaging directness and energy whilst remaining light and transparent.
Understandably, the sketch found favourable reception with Van Rappard: 'I was pleased to hear that you felt something for my little winter garden' (Collected letters, R44). Van Gogh was stimulated to work out its theme and made six drawings that belong to his best in Nuenen. He sent these in a roll to Van Rappard. One of them, 'Winter Garden' (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, F1130) works out the suggestive, symbolic theme of a small, black figure among the barren trees with a church tower in the distance. 'Indeed, this garden sets me dreaming', he wrote to Van Rappard in the same letter. In this sketch, as in the painting it copies, Van Gogh is more faithful to what he saw from the parsonage. He summarised his world in the spring of 1884. In a simple and quite descriptive way, the drawing unites some elements that were dear to him: the spring garden of the parsonage of his father, a 'little black spook' on the garden path and, in the distance, the old church tower of Nuenen, that was soon to be demolished. All elements are situated in a perspective framework and positioned on the soil like so many chess pieces. Van Gogh only had to step outside his garden studio in order to find this view. The natural perspective in which these elements have been gathered in order to form a certain unity, also implies a spiritual perspective, maybe even a spiritual hierarchy. The Old Church Tower appears almost in the focus, which is in the mathematical centre of the drawing; a woman, clad in black walks away, but turns around, her face a brightly lit spot against her dark dress. To Van Gogh, nature did not occur to him but filled with connotations, provided by his reading, be it religious or belletristic. He repeated the combination of elements in this painting several times, in drawings as well as in paintings. The combination of trees and church tower had struck him often as particularly telling.
In his drawing of the 'Parsonage Garden', this train of thought is already discernible in the opposition between the spring trees and the old tower in the distance. The trees, inevitably, indicating the new coming spring, the passing of seasons. The small figure of a woman clad in black may be the key to this interpretation. A similar figure appears in an earlier drawing of the same garden, now covered with snow. Quite symbolically, Van Gogh inscribed this drawing 'Mèlancholie'. In the aforementioned letter to Van Rappard, Van Gogh tried to avoid any specific meaning for this figure, that also appears in the other drawings that he made of the subject. He spoke of 'a little black spook' when he discussed the famous related drawing 'Wintertuin', 'which this time too appears in it not as an example, worthy of imitation, of the correct drawing of the structure of the human body, but as a tâche (a dark spot)' (Collected letters, R44). It is the kind of explanation that no one has asked for, and therefore attracts attention as if something had to be hidden.
As a pictorial strategy, the opposition between the tower, the 'old religion' and the yet barren spring garden with the inviting female figure is repeated in Van Gogh's famous 'Still life with Open Bible' (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, F117), which he painted as a way of resolving the death of his father, grief and relief combined. Here, his father's Bible, the 'old religion', is confronted with a copy of Zola's 'Joie de vivre' that he just read.
In the drawing, the lady in black introduces an unexpected element of momentaneity in the drawing, a passing thought. As she looks at the artist, and at the viewer, by implication, her bright face gives a spark of optimism to the still barren nature. Could she be an evocation of Margot Begemann, the 43-year old woman with whom Vincent, then 30, established an intimate relationship during the first months of 1884, much against the will of her family?
We kindly thank Dr. F. Leeman for his help in cataloguing this lot.
Understandably, the sketch found favourable reception with Van Rappard: 'I was pleased to hear that you felt something for my little winter garden' (Collected letters, R44). Van Gogh was stimulated to work out its theme and made six drawings that belong to his best in Nuenen. He sent these in a roll to Van Rappard. One of them, 'Winter Garden' (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, F1130) works out the suggestive, symbolic theme of a small, black figure among the barren trees with a church tower in the distance. 'Indeed, this garden sets me dreaming', he wrote to Van Rappard in the same letter. In this sketch, as in the painting it copies, Van Gogh is more faithful to what he saw from the parsonage. He summarised his world in the spring of 1884. In a simple and quite descriptive way, the drawing unites some elements that were dear to him: the spring garden of the parsonage of his father, a 'little black spook' on the garden path and, in the distance, the old church tower of Nuenen, that was soon to be demolished. All elements are situated in a perspective framework and positioned on the soil like so many chess pieces. Van Gogh only had to step outside his garden studio in order to find this view. The natural perspective in which these elements have been gathered in order to form a certain unity, also implies a spiritual perspective, maybe even a spiritual hierarchy. The Old Church Tower appears almost in the focus, which is in the mathematical centre of the drawing; a woman, clad in black walks away, but turns around, her face a brightly lit spot against her dark dress. To Van Gogh, nature did not occur to him but filled with connotations, provided by his reading, be it religious or belletristic. He repeated the combination of elements in this painting several times, in drawings as well as in paintings. The combination of trees and church tower had struck him often as particularly telling.
In his drawing of the 'Parsonage Garden', this train of thought is already discernible in the opposition between the spring trees and the old tower in the distance. The trees, inevitably, indicating the new coming spring, the passing of seasons. The small figure of a woman clad in black may be the key to this interpretation. A similar figure appears in an earlier drawing of the same garden, now covered with snow. Quite symbolically, Van Gogh inscribed this drawing 'Mèlancholie'. In the aforementioned letter to Van Rappard, Van Gogh tried to avoid any specific meaning for this figure, that also appears in the other drawings that he made of the subject. He spoke of 'a little black spook' when he discussed the famous related drawing 'Wintertuin', 'which this time too appears in it not as an example, worthy of imitation, of the correct drawing of the structure of the human body, but as a tâche (a dark spot)' (Collected letters, R44). It is the kind of explanation that no one has asked for, and therefore attracts attention as if something had to be hidden.
As a pictorial strategy, the opposition between the tower, the 'old religion' and the yet barren spring garden with the inviting female figure is repeated in Van Gogh's famous 'Still life with Open Bible' (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, F117), which he painted as a way of resolving the death of his father, grief and relief combined. Here, his father's Bible, the 'old religion', is confronted with a copy of Zola's 'Joie de vivre' that he just read.
In the drawing, the lady in black introduces an unexpected element of momentaneity in the drawing, a passing thought. As she looks at the artist, and at the viewer, by implication, her bright face gives a spark of optimism to the still barren nature. Could she be an evocation of Margot Begemann, the 43-year old woman with whom Vincent, then 30, established an intimate relationship during the first months of 1884, much against the will of her family?
We kindly thank Dr. F. Leeman for his help in cataloguing this lot.