In a letter to his brother, Theo, in 1882, Vincent van Gogh wrote: ‘Drawing is the most important thing, no matter what they say, and far and away the most difficult.’
It’s a surprising claim from an artist whose paintings have become some of the most celebrated images in Western art. Yet drawing lay at the heart of Van Gogh's practice and was the medium through which he explored technique, experimented with materials and honed the powerful visual language that would define his art. Across little more than a decade, he produced hundreds of drawings that were experimental, expressive, intimate and ambitious, serving as studies, gifts, illustrated letters and finished works in their own right.
In this extract from The Drawings of Vincent van Gogh, Christopher Lloyd traces Van Gogh’s early years as an artist, exploring how a late starter with little formal training taught himself to draw and laid the foundations for one of the most remarkable careers in art history.
Vincent van Gogh, The Sower, c. 6–8 August 1888. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). One of many copies that Van Gogh made of The Sower by Jean-François Millet.
The decision made by Van Gogh to commit himself to becoming an artist first on paper, as opposed to canvas, is significant. It is, for instance, reflected not only in the large number of drawings in his oeuvre, but also in the variety of uses to which he put those drawings and the moments in his career when he chose to give them priority. The full range of works on paper by Van Gogh is astonishing: preparatory studies for paintings, drawings made for sale, presentation drawings given to friends, records of completed paintings or work in progress (referred to affectionally as ‘scratches’ or ‘scribbles’) – frequently enclosed with or liberally illustrating his unusually extensive correspondence – and even sketches of the various materials and instruments that he needed or used for making drawings.
The full range of works on paper by Van Gogh is astonishing: preparatory studies for paintings, drawings made for sale, presentation drawings given to friends, records of completed paintings or work in progress (referred to affectionally as ‘scratches’ or ‘scribbles’). Christopher Lloyd
Most significantly, at times drawing often took precedence over painting. Few other artists resorted to drawing on so many different occasions or came to rely so heavily on it as a means of communication – in the process, revealing so much of themselves. Perhaps only Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), Michelangelo (1475–1564), Rembrandt (1606–1669) and Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) among his distant predecessors fall into this category.
Any assessment of Van Gogh’s significance as an artist, therefore, has to take into account the importance that drawing held for him. It was not simply a preparatory exercise or an act of mediation, but an impassioned expression of his temperament and his response to the world in which he lived.
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Vincent van Gogh, The Entrance to the Pawn Bank, The Hague, March 1882. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).
Throughout his working life, bursts of activity devoted solely to painting alternated with similar bursts of activity devoted to drawing. It is all the more remarkable that such a high level of intensity was restricted to a limited period of a single decade, in which the volume of output seems inversely proportional to the time actually spent as a fully fledged artist. Added to this is the extraordinary fact that Van Gogh was virtually self-taught and only very occasionally subjected himself to any kind of formal instruction or training.
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Van Gogh’s earliest surviving drawings were undertaken in 1872–73 in The Hague, while he was working at Goupil & Cie, and also subsequently in England between 1873 and 1875. These are made in a mixed media of pencil and pen and ink, which was to become a favourite combination. The choice of motifs in many of these drawings would become familiar in Van Gogh’s later works on paper. There is a certain aptitude in dealing with recession and spatial intervals in these first attempts, just as there is variety in the line and an eye for detail. But the overall effect is spoiled by uncertainties and missteps, which give the early drawings an untutored appearance with a tentative finish. Later, Van Gogh reflected on his missed opportunities during this period: ‘When I was in London, how often I would stand on the Thames Embankment and draw as I made my way home from Southampton Street in the evening, and it looked terrible. If only there had been someone then who had told me what perspective was, how much misery I would have been spared, how much further along I would be now’.
[Drawing] was not simply a preparatory exercise or an act of mediation, but an impassioned expression of his temperament and his response to the world in which he lived. Christopher Lloyd
Vincent van Gogh, Lange Vijverberg, The Hague, autumn 1872–spring 1873. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). One of Vincent van Gogh’s earliest surviving drawings.
Faced, therefore, as a late starter, with the quandary of literally learning how to draw, Van Gogh had three courses of action. The first was to teach himself from the illustrated manuals, which could explain the fundamental principles, instruct him in such practical problems as the properties of the materials from which he could choose, and influence him by encouraging the copying of appropriate examples from the history of art in order to set him on the right path. […]
A second way of learning for Van Gogh was to make copies after artists whose work he sought out as a guide. Foremost for him in this respect was Millet, on whom, in many ways, he wanted to model himself. […] His reputation was established by his depiction of scenes of peasant life, such as The Angelus (1857–59) and The Gleaners (1857), both now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. […] Apart from the subject matter, Van Gogh particularly admired Millet for his drawings, including pastels, which were often on a large scale. […]. Another exemplar for the depiction of rural subjects favoured by Van Gogh was Jules Breton (1827–1906), to whom he made a pilgrimage in 1875, walking most of the way from Cuesmes in Belgium to Courrières in northern France (a distance of some fifty miles or seventy-eight kilometres), in order to pay his respects. […]
Left: Vincent van Gogh, The Sower (after Millet), April 1881. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). One of many copies that Van Gogh made of The Sower by Jean-François Millet | Right: The Daughter of Jacob Meyer (after Bargue after Holbein), October 1880–April 1881. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
The third course of action open to Van Gogh for learning was to consult directly with practising artists. In this he was well placed, since a cousin by marriage, Anton Mauve (1838–1888), was a leading member of the Hague School and influential in such organizations as the Pulchri Studio (founded in 1847), a society based in The Hague that organized exhibitions, and the Hollandsche Teekenmaatschappij (the Dutch Drawing Society, founded in 1876). Artists of the Hague School were recognized as the successors of the Golden Age of Dutch painting in the seventeenth century and specialized in landscapes, marine subjects and domestic genre scenes. […] In the summer of 1881, Van Gogh first contacted Mauve, who gave him several lessons and acted as an adviser. The benefits for him were considerable: he was motivated to make drawings from life as opposed to copying, he learnt about the technique of using watercolour and he was introduced to the rudiments of painting in oil. […]
Of his younger contemporaries, Van Gogh’s closest contact was with Anthon van Rappard, whose family belonged to the lower ranks of the Dutch aristocracy. They met in Brussels in 1880 and formed a friendship based on a shared interest in depicting scenes relating to working life and an appreciation of a similar kind of landscape, such as the province of Drenthe in the northeastern part of the Netherlands where many Dutch and German artists went on painting campaigns.
Vincent van Gogh, Pollard Birches, March 1884. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).
The unusual start to Van Gogh’s career as an artist, allied to his strong personality, helped to create the uncompromising and passionate character of his work, which is apparent in equal measure in the intensity of both his paintings and drawings. The governing style of the works on paper, often made with complex combinations of mixed media and sometimes heavily worked, is always energized and forceful. The early choices of materials for making his drawings are an indication of exactly how independent Van Gogh was prepared to be as an artist and to what lengths he was prepared to go in order to achieve the results he wanted.
From the start, he was not afraid to experiment and act independently, endlessly seeking the most effective means of direct expression. Christopher Lloyd
From the start, he was not afraid to experiment and act independently, endlessly seeking the most effective means of direct expression. It is no exaggeration to say that he adapted or improvised upon nearly all the traditional techniques of drawing and, in the process, became acutely conscious of the visual impact and physical properties of pencil, pen, brush, ink, charcoal, chalk and watercolour. For example, he had at various times a preference for carpenter’s pencil over ordinary Faber pencil because it could produce delicate lines as well as broad strokes; early on he selected greasy lithographic crayon and natural (or Italian) chalk over standard manufactured black chalk, charcoal or Conté; he found specially cut quill pens or reed pens preferable to steel nibs; inks of varying hues and liquidity such as printer’s ink or autograph ink held sway over bistre or sepia; and he exploited the opaque qualities of watercolour over the more usual transparent effects of the medium. The brush was frequently used to add heightening in either watercolour or opaque white.
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Left: Vincent van Gogh, The Postman Joseph Roulin, early August 1888. © Los Angeles County Museum of Art. George Gard De Sylva Collection | Right: Vincent van Gogh, Café Terrace on the place du Forum, early September 1888. © Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection
Everywhere in Van Gogh’s works on paper, the viewer is aware of the actual physical act of drawing. Apart from the mark-making itself, there is often evidence of scraping, scumbling, rubbing, scratching, erasing, fixing and dampening. Drawing at the best of times was a fractious and totally committed affair or, at worst, an assault. Even so, any judgment on his technique needs to be tempered, on account of the lyrical way in which he could describe the raw materials that he held in his hand, such as his reference to natural chalk as having ‘the colour of a ploughed field on a summer evening’.
Everywhere in Van Gogh’s works on paper, the viewer is aware of the actual physical act of drawing. Apart from the mark-making itself, there is often evidence of scraping, scumbling, rubbing, scratching, erasing, fixing and dampening. Christopher Lloyd
It should be remembered that the artist was always short of money and at times relied completely on Theo for supplies and replacements. The materials even for drawing, let alone painting, were expensive and not always available when Van Gogh was working in isolation. Models, too, needed to be paid and sometimes provided with costumes or props. Accordingly, Van Gogh often had to compromise, but this made him only more determined and also more inventive. Such were the circumstances, however, that enabled one of the most naturally gifted draughtsmen in European art to flourish, even if during his own lifetime he was unable to prosper.
Words by Christopher Lloyd
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