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Testimony to Theo: Vincent van Gogh's Witness of Faith
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
Between May 1875 and December 1879, Vincent van Gogh's life was marked by a devout evangelical piety, distinctly different from what had gone before. Although raised in a religious family, his father a Dutch Reformed minister in the Groningen tradition, van Gogh barely mentions religion in his early letters. His religious fervor deepened considerably, however, sometime during 1875, while he was living in Paris. Van Gogh's letters dating from May 1875 are increasingly filled with biblical quotations and religious reflections. His sister-in-law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, in describing van Gogh's character during this period wrote, “that was Vincent's aim—to humble himself, to forget himself, ‘mourir à soi-meme,’ (to sacrifice every personal desire), that was the ideal he tried to reach as long as he sought his refuge in religion, and he never did a thing by halves.”
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- Copyright © American Society of Church History 1992
References
1. Van Gogh's Father, Theodorus van Gogh, was a member of the mediating school of Groningen. See van Gogh-Bonger, Jo and van Gogh, Vincent (van Gogh's nephew), eds., The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, 3 vols. (Boston, 1958), 3.592 (hereafter cited as Letters).Google Scholar
2. Characteristic of evangelical piety is belief in the importance of the Bible for communicating the religious experience, since the Holy Spirit, responsible for effecting conversion, speaks directly through the Holy Word of God. This would account for van Gogh's devotion to the Bible after May 1875, which is apparent in the “Testimony to Theo,” which is itself a long string of biblical quotations.
3. Letters, 1. xxviii.
4. Letters, 1.7.
5. See Cabanne, Pierre, Van Gogh (London, 1963), p. 14,Google ScholarLubin, Albert J., Stranger on the Earth (New York, 1987), p. 36,Google Scholar and Tralbaut, Marc, Vincent van Gogh (Lausanne, 1969), p. 44.Google Scholar
6. Letters, letter 35, 1 September 1875, 1.33.
7. Edwards, Cliff, Van Gogh and God (Chicago, 1990), p. 20.Google Scholar Even Jan Hulsker, a careful and astute biographer, writes “One of the causes for Vincent's diminishing interest in the art business was undoubtedly his religious zeal, which had gradually assumed the character of fanaticism, as his letters show.” See Hulsker, Jan, The Complete van Gogh (New York, 1980), p. 9.Google Scholar
8. Edwards, , Van Gogh and God, p. 30.Google Scholar The theological background of the van Gogh family is the subject of the first chapter of my doctoral dissertation, At Eternity's Gate: a Religious Biography of Vincent van Gogh, which should be available at the University of Chicago sometime after August of 1992.
9. The Groningen Theology emphasized the importance of the example of Jesus in the education of humanity to “Godlikeness.” They believed the Bible to be inerrant, embraced an Arian Christology and an Arminian soteriology, rejected original sin, and preserved the Free Will doctrine of Erasmus and the mystical tradition of Thomas à Kempis. See de Groot, Hofstede, Groninger Godgeleerden (Groningen, 1855).Google Scholar
10. Letters, letter 79, 1–9 November 1876, 1.73.
11. Memoirs of the Rev. Bonte from 1914, Letters 1.224.
12. The Dutch edition is van Crimpen, Han, ed., De Brieven van Vincent van Gogh, 4 vols. (Gravenhage, 1990).Google Scholar Jan Hulsker brought to light this new information in a paper entitled “The Borinage Episode and the Misrepresentation of Vincent van Gogh,” presented at the van Gogh Symposium, 10 and 11 May 1990 at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam.
13. I argue that van Gogh's piety, rather than an excessive aberration of religion, exemplifies the Imitatio Christi tradition, in “Pilgrims and Strangers: the role of The Imitation of Christ and The Pilgrim's Progress in Shaping the Piety of Vincent van Gogh,” Bunyan Studies 4 (Spring 1991), pp. 7–36. I also explain the impact of this religious tradition on some of van Gogh's paintings.
14. The document, which I have titled, “Vincent's Testimony to Theo,” is officially labelled sermon b 1463 V/1962, pp. 1–7. It was pointed out to me by Fieke Pabst, head of research and documentation at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam.
15. For example, when van Gogh writes, “We also think we desire something good from You when we pray to You to give us in your time a ring on the finger and to have us meet her on our path and to make us into men and fathers,” he is expressing a deeply personal desire that he and his brother may find wives and have the blessings of children. This would be inappropriate for a public sermon.
16. Letters, letter 82a, 25 November 1876, 1.76–86. The dating of letter 82a is somewhat controversial. Although it was certainly written from Isleworth in 1876, and has been historically dated late November, Jan Hulsker argues for an early September date owing to van Gogh's reference to his mother's birthday in the margin. Vincent had asked Theo to send an enclosed birthday card, depicting Scheffer's Prodigal Son, to his mother, whose birthday was 10 September. See Hulsker, Jan, Van Gogh door van Gogh (Amsterdam, 1973), p. 215.Google Scholar
Except for the reference to his mother's birthday, the November dating is more consistent. Van Gogh refers to the Prodigal Son as a possible sermon text, in letter 81, dated 17 November, “Next Sunday evening, I have to go to a Methodist church in Petersham…. I do not know what text I shall take, The Prodigal Son or Psalm 42:1.” (Enclosed with the “testimony” were copies of Psalms 42, 23, 25, and 91). The September dating takes the letter out of sequence, however, and references to Christmas would seem more appropriate in a letter written in late November. For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to conclude that letter 82a was written in the autumn of 1876.
17. While van Gogh's one extant sermon, written in English, does appear in The Complete Letters (1: 87–91, a more accurate and complete version appears in Leistra, Josefine, George Henry Boughton: God Speed! Pelgrims op weg naar Canterbury (Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 56–63.Google Scholar Van Gogh mentions delivering sermons for the first time in his letters from Isleworth, beginning in October of 1876. Because the sermon was written in English, we know it was delivered there. Van Gogh left England permanently after Christmas in 1876, so we know that the sermon dates from the fall of 1876, probably from mid-November.
18. Letters, letter 39, 25 September 1875, 1.36.
19. Letters, letter 109, 7 September 1877, 1.139.
20. Letters, letter 85, 8 February 1877, 1.93.
21. See the account of P. C. Gorlitz , included in Letters 1.113.
22. Letters, letter 66, 12 May 1876, 1.57.
23. This letter is found in Hulsker, Jan, “1878, A decisive Year in the Lives of Theo and Vincent,” Vincent, 3(1974:15).Google Scholar
24. Letters, letter 119, 18 February 1878, 1.161.
25. Weisbach, Werner, Vincent van Gogh, Kunst und Schichsal, 2 vols. (Basel, 1949), 1.16.Google Scholar
26. The manuscript is a handwritten letter, labelled sermon b 1463 V/1962, pp. 1–7, in the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam.
27. In the original, van Gogh follows the period with a dash. Van Gogh's unusual punctuation causes many of the difficulties in rendering the text into English.
28. In this paragraph, and elsewhere, I have opted for more of a literal than literary translation. Convoluted syntax frequently makes the original, handwritten Dutch text difficult to decipher.
29. The Dutch verb “beven” means “to tremble.” At times, van Gogh's “b” looks similar to his “I.” This opens the possibility that the verb “leven” is intended, that is “to live.” This attractive possibility for translation does not, however, appear to be warranted by the handwriting in all cases.
30. Remarkably, this sentence is in English in the original text.