But what can one do, unfortunately it’s complicated in several ways, my paintings are worthless, they cost me an extraordinary amount, it’s true, perhaps sometimes even in blood and brain. I won’t press the point, and what do you want me to say about it.
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Filtering: Tagged with money
ResetThe mistake in pal Gauguin’s calculations was, in my opinion, that he’s a little too accustomed to closing his eyes to the inevitable expenses of house rental, charwoman and a whole heap of earthly things of that kind.
I’ve received a letter from Mr E. Dujardin regarding the exhibition of some canvases of mine in his dark hole. I find it so disgusting to pay for the planned exhibition with a canvas that in reality there aren’t two answers to this gentleman’s letter.
I can do nothing about it if my paintings don’t sell. The day will come, though, when people will see that they’re worth more than the cost of the paint and my subsistence, very meagre in fact, that we put into them.
I’ve had gas put in, in the studio and the kitchen, which is costing me 25 francs for installation.
We’re sparing nothing of what we have, in order to obtain some rich effect of color. And I believe that the idea of earning something as much for the pals as for ourselves will give us confidence. And in our business dealings, although we have no fixed plan, everything we do will nevertheless be based on that deep sense that we have of the present injustice suffered by the artists whom we know, and of the desire to change it as far as we can. With that idea, we can work with calmness and determination, and in short, we have nothing to fear from anyone. I’m working on a portrait of our mother because the black photograph was making me too impatient.
Neither Gauguin nor Bernard has written to me again. I believe that Gauguin doesn’t give a damn, seeing that it isn’t happening right away, and for my part, seeing that Gauguin has been managing anyway for 6 months, I’m ceasing to believe in the urgent need to come to his assistance.
As long as we were preparing the way for richer lives for the painters who will walk in our footsteps, that would already be something.
I’ve received a letter from Gauguin in which he talks about painting and complains about not yet having the money needed to come here — but nothing new or different.
At the moment I’m concentrating on doing something to enhance the value of my paintings. You know I have only one means of achieving that end — it’s to paint them.
I haven’t left for Saintes-Maries — they’ve finished painting the house and I had to pay, and I also have to buy quite a considerable supply of canvas.
And out of the fifty francs I’ve got one louis left and we’re only Tuesday morning, and so it was hardly possible for me to leave and I fear it won’t yet be possible next week either.
I believe in the victory of Gauguin and other artists—but—between then and now there’s a long time, and even if he had the good fortune to sell one or two canvases—it would be the same story.
I’ve found a better restaurant where I eat for 1 franc.
Because the people here, in order to make me pay pretty high rates for EVERYTHING, make too much of the fact that I take up a little more room with my paintings than their other customers who aren’t painters. For my part, I’ll make the point that I’m staying longer and spend more in the guest-house than laborers who just stay a short time. And they won’t get a sou out of me so easily any more.
I’ve had a line from Gauguin, who complains about the bad weather, is still unwell and says nothing vexes him more than lack of money among the variety of human ills, and yet he feels doomed to be broke for ever.
Here are the expenses
| Given to Roulin to pay the charwoman for the month of December 20 Francs. same for 1st fortnight of January 10 ,, | Fr | 30 | ,- | |
| Paid | to hospital | 21 | ||
| ,, | to the nurses who dressed the wound | 10 | ||
| On returning here paid for a table, a gas heater &c., which had been lent to me and which I then took on account | 20 | |||
| Paid for having all the bedding, bloodstained linen &c. laundered | 12 | ,50 | ||
| Various purchases like a dozen brushes, a hat &c. &c. let’s say | 10 | |||
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103.50 |
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Thus we’ve already arrived, on the day I left hospital or the day after, at an involuntary expenditure on my part of 103.50, to which it must be added that then on the first day I cheerfully went to have dinner with Roulin at the restaurant, completely reassured and with no fear of renewed anguish. In short, the result of all that was that I was broke around the 8th.
I have many expenses, and it sometimes distresses me greatly when I increasingly come to realize that painting is a craft that is probably practiced by extremely poor people, since it costs a lot of money.
And just as worries don’t come singly, nor do joys, either. Because actually, always bowed down under this money problem with lodging-house keepers, I put up with it cheerfully. I’d given a piece of my mind to the said lodging-house keeper, who isn’t a bad man after all, and I’d told him that to get my own back on him for having paid him so much money for nothing, I’d paint his whole filthy old place as a way of getting my money back. Well, to the great delight of the lodging-house keeper, the postman whom I’ve already painted, the prowling night-visitors and myself, for 3 nights I stayed up to paint, going to bed during the day. It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly colored than the day. Now as for recovering the money paid to the landlord through my painting, I’m not making a point of it, because the painting is one of the ugliest I’ve done. It’s the equivalent, though different, of the potato eaters.
I couldn’t pay my rent on the 1st, having a model for the whole week—I have two portraits of the same model on the go, which are more important to me than the rest. But it’s on this occasion, when I was putting my chap off till next Monday for the month’s rent, that he said something, that he could find another tenant for the house if I hadn’t decided to keep it. Which doesn’t surprise me much, since I’ve had it repaired myself, and so it’s improved.
It’s to my astonishment that I can already see the bottom of my wallet; it’s true that I had my month’s rent to pay. You must clearly know that if I deduct food and lodging, all the rest of my money still runs away on canvases. In short, they turn out rather expensive, without counting the trouble they cause. However, I dare hope that one day the money we spend will come back in part, and if I had more money I would spend even more trying to find good rich colorations.