The Way Vincent Starts Drawing

Before Vincent starts drawing and painting he did lots of other things. When he worked at the Goupil art trade company he gets acquainted with all kinds of art. He does not like the job at Goupil but develops an astuteness about painters and paintings. After 8 years of working at Goupil's Vincent quits, but his brother Theo stays and he will work the rest of his life for this firm.

F irst Vincent will go through fanatically religious period. He wants to be a clergyman like his father and grandfather. It soon becomes apparent that Vincent lacks the qualities for this job. He gets a job as a teacher in England but fails there. Then he works at a book shop at Dordrecht, but he spends all his time there reading the bible and finally he goes to Belgium. He works very hard as an evangelist in the Bourinage, a mining district with many poor people. When he has a moment of rest he makes some sketches of labourers. In spite of his enthusiasm to do a perfect job as an evangelist he gets dismissed because he lacks "the gift of speaking and preaching". Vincent is very disappointed and in 1880 he writes to Theo: "Whatever, I will be all right, and I will take my pencil in my hand again and start drawing".

A chinese box with little balls of wool, which Vincent used to resemble some colors

In 1880 Vincent moves to Brussels and he asks Theo to borrow ten sheets with engravings of Millets "travaux des champs" in order to copy them. Millet's work with pictures of working farmers and labourers will inspire Vincent in time to come. He calls the French painter "Father Millet", because Millet is the only person, according to Vincent, who is able to show the real soul in the figures he paints. Like Millet, Vincent wants to paint farmers, and he will do so during his whole life. Vincent gets inspiration too from some art courses, designed by the French Charles Bargue: "Exercises au fusain" (how to use your pencil) and "Cours de dessin" (how to learn drawing). Vincent starts practicing these courses quite fanatically. In the meantime Theo got a better job at Goupil's and is able to send his brother some money every month. Staying at Brussels Vincent meets the young painter Anthon van Rappard. They become friends and Vincent is working from time to time in the studio of his new friend. When van Rappard leaves Brussels, Vincent decides to go home to Etten because living at Brussels and renting a studio is much too expensive for him. "The best thing to do is to spend this summer at Etten, there is a lot to draw there", he writes to Theo.

After all those years of poverty, sorrow and disappointment, the first months at Etten are a relief. It was good to be back home at Etten, a friendly small village in West Brabant in the south of the Netherlands. Without sorrow he would be able to practice sketching and drawing ...