The letter was co-written by the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh and the French painter Paul Gauguin
Paris:
A letter written jointly by Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin in which they talk about their brothel visits and share their mutual admiration, sold for 210,600 euros ($ 236,000) at auction in Paris on Tuesday.
The letter, which mentions how they wanted to revive modern art and create an “association of painters”, was signed by the two painters.
It is addressed from Arles to their painter friend Emile Bernard and dated November 1/2, 1888, less than two years before Van Gogh’s death at the age of 37.
Gauguin arrived in Arles, where Van Gogh lived, on October 23, 1888, and the two spent several stormy months painting together.
It was during the fateful visit that Van Gogh lost his ear, presenting it to a maid.
The incident effectively ended his often strained relationship with Gauguin.
In the letter sold by Aristophil Collections to the Drouot auction rooms in Paris, the two men insist that art is moving towards what Van Gogh calls “an immense renaissance”.
The Dutchman also talks about his visitor and his getaways.
“Gauguin interests me a lot as a man,” he said.
“It seems to me for a long time that in our dirty profession of painter, we have the greatest need of people with the hands and the belly of the workers, with more natural tastes, more loving and more charitable temperaments than the decadent Parisian boulevardier and exhausted.”
He describes Gauguin as “a virgin being with wild animal instincts. In Gauguin, blood and sex outweigh ambition.
“We have made a few trips to brothels and it is likely that we will often end up going there to work.”
Van Gogh cedes the pen on the last page to Gauguin who would have a successful sale of paintings to Drouot in 1891.
“Don’t listen to Vincent,” he wrote. “As you know, it’s easy to impress.”
As for “his idea on the future of a new generation in the tropics as a painter”, it “seems to me to be entirely correct and I continue to want to return to it”.
Gauguin realized the idea of the “tropics” by going to live in French Polynesia where he died in 1903, at the age of 54.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
