The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Chapters 1-5 cover the years 1872 through 1879, following Van Gogh between the ages of 19 and 26. During this time, he had not decided to become an artist, and was instead focused on religious pursuits. These early letters, therefore, have a markedly different tone and thematic focus than the letters that would be written during his years as an illustrator and painter, but introduce some elements of The Links Between Religious and Artistic Life in Van Gogh’s experience. 

Much of the time, Van Gogh is highly concerned with proselytizing whoever he comes into contact with, not least of all his own brother, and his writings reflect the increasingly intense nature of his faith. In one letter particularly dense with his religious recommendations, he told Theo, “Let us ask that it may fall to us to become the poor in the Kingdom of God, God’s servants. We are still a long way from that, however, since there are often beams in our eye that we know not of” (61). This quote features several allusions to the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, and is representative of Van Gogh’s tendency to pepper biblical allusions throughout his letters in the early period.

Another passage crucial to understanding Van Gogh’s staunchly religious ideology in his late teens and early 20s is the first sermon he delivered in Isleworth, which he copied out in full for Theo. This sermon blends religious, literary, and artistic allusions, bringing together the three great passions of Van Gogh’s life at the time into one message about the nature of religious life. Inspired by the poem “Up-hill” by Christina Rossetti and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Van Gogh told his congregation, “We are pilgrims, our life is a long walk or journey from earth to heaven” (78), and then solidified this metaphor by discussing a painting by George Henry Boughton that called to his mind the same theme. For a long time, it was thought that the Boughton painting he was referring to was Godspeed! Pilgrims Setting out for Canterbury (1874), but that identification has more recently been questioned by some experts. Both The Pilgrim’s Progress and Godspeed! (if it is, indeed, the painting Van Gogh referred to) deal with the religious theme of pilgrimage, illustrating how Van Gogh was cultivating a blend of religious and artistic sensibilities even before he became an artist himself.

Just as art was intertwined with Van Gogh’s religious ideology during these years, so too was his relationship with his father, introducing the theme of Tension Between Personal Ambition and Familial Duty. Theodorus van Gogh the elder (not to be confused with Vincent’s younger brother) looms over the religious passages of the letters to Theo as the clerical model whom Van Gogh was eager to emulate. He told Theo, “there are some who feel: God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Father is one of those few, Mother too, and Uncle Vt as well, I think” (60). This devout older generation of the Van Gogh family, especially his minister father, impressed upon Van Gogh the notion that pursuing a severe religious path would help him to achieve his family’s approval. 

His father’s disapproval, therefore, of Van Gogh’s missionary work in Belgium pierced the very heart of his faith. In a letter from July 1880, he told Theo following a falling out with their parents, “please don’t think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and although I have changed, I am still the same” (132). The extremity of Van Gogh’s pivot away from religion, in connection with the deterioration of his relationship with his father, suggests that consciously or unconsciously, part of Van Gogh’s religious motivation was founded on his desire to impress his father.

In these letters from the pre-painter period of Van Gogh’s life appear the seeds of Van Gogh’s artistic career. Despite his decision to reject organized religion, traces of the strong spirituality of these letters can be found in letters from later stages of his life, and in the spiritual tone of his paintings. Additionally, the pre-painter letters provide crucial exposition about Van Gogh’s familial relationships (most notably with his brother and father), relationships that would continue to be a central subject matter of the letters moving forward.