“Alas,” said Vincent, “I’m afraid I was born into it.”
“Let’s formulate our manifesto, gentlemen,” said Zola. “First, we think all truth beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain good, because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex beautiful, even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness, and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety, without making moral judgements. We think the prostitute as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature, and are woven into the design of life!”
“Glasses up, gentlemen,” cried Toulouse-Lautrec. “We drink to amorality and the cult of ugliness. May it beautify and recreate the world.”
“Tosh!” said Cezanne.
“And ‘Tosh!’ again,” said Georges Seurat.
9
AT THE BEGINNING of June, Theo and Vincent moved to their new apartment at 54, Rue Lepic, Montmartre. The house was just a short way from the Rue Laval; they had only to go up the Rue Montmartre a few blocks to the Boulevard Clichy, and then take the winding Rue Lepic up past the Moulin de la Galette, almost into the countrified part of the Butte.
Their apartment was on the third floor. It had three rooms, a cabinet and a kitchen. The living room was comfortable with Theo’s beautiful old cabinet, Louis Philippes, and a big stove to protect them against the Paris cold. Theo had a talent for home-making. He loved to have everything just right. His bedroom was next to the living room. Vincent slept in the cabinet, behind which was his studio, an ordinary sized room with one window.
“You won’t have to work at Corman’s any longer, Vincent,” said Theo. They were arranging and rearranging the furniture in the living room.
“No, thank heavens. Still, I needed to do a few female nudes.”
Theo placed the sofa across the room from the cabinet and surveyed the room critically. “You haven’t done a complete canvas in colour for some time, have you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“What would be the use? Until I can mix the right colours . . . where do you want this armchair, Theo? Under the lamp or next to the window? But now that I’ve got a studio of my own . . .”
The following morning Vincent got up with the sun, arranged the easel in his new studio, put a piece of canvas on a frame, laid out the shining new palette that Theo had bought him, and softened up his brushes. When it was time for Theo to rise, he put on the coffee and went down to the pâtisserie for crisp, fresh croissants.
Theo could feel Vincent’s turbulent excitement across the breakfast table.
“Well, Vincent,” he said, “you’ve been to school for three months. Oh, I don’t mean Corman’s, I mean the school of Paris! You’ve seen the most important painting that has been done in Europe in three hundred years. And now you’re ready to . . .”
Vincent pushed aside his half-eaten breakfast and jumped to his feet. “I think I’ll begin . . .”
“Sit down. Finish your breakfast. You have plenty of time. There’s nothing for you to worry about. I’ll buy your paints and canvas wholesale, so you’ll always have plenty on hand. You’d better have your teeth operated on, too; I want to get you into perfect health. But for goodness sake, go about your work slowly and carefully!”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Theo. Have I ever gone about anything slowly and carefully?”
When Theo came home that night he found that Vincent had lashed himself into a fury. He had been working progressively at his craft for six years under the most heartbreaking conditions; now that everything was made easy for him, he was faced with a humiliating impotence.
It was ten o’clock before Theo could get him quieted down. When they went out to dinner, some of Vincent’s confidence had returned. Theo looked pale and worn.
The weeks that followed were torture for both of them. When Theo returned from the gallery he would find Vincent in any one of his hundred different kinds of tempests. The strong lock on his door did him absolutely no good. Vincent sat on his bed until the early hours of the morning, arguing with him. When Theo fell asleep, Vincent shook him by the shoulder and woke him up.
“Stop pacing the floor and sit still for a moment,” begged Theo one night. “And stop drinking that damned absinthe. That’s not how Gauguin developed his palette. Now listen to me, you infernal idiot, you must give yourself at least a year before you even begin to look at your work with a critical eye. What good is it going to do to make yourself sick? You’re getting thin and nervous. You know you can’t do your best work in that condition.”
The hotness of a Parisian summer came on. The sun burned up the streets. Paris sat in front of its favourite cafe until one and two in the morning, sipping cold drinks. The flowers on the Butte Montmartre burst into a riot of colour. The Seine wound its glistening way through the city, through banks of trees and cool patches of green grass.
Every morning Vincent strapped his easel to his back and went looking for a picture. He had never known such hot, constant sun in Holland, nor had he ever seen such deep, elemental colour. Nearly every evening he returned from his painting in time to join the heated discussions on the entresol of Goupils.
One day Gauguin came in to help him mix some pigments.
“From whom do you buy these colours?” he asked.
“Theo gets them wholesale.”
“You should patronize Pére Tanguy. His prices are the lowest in Paris, and he trusts a man when he’s broke.”
“Who is this Pére Tanguy? I’ve heard you mention him before.”
“Haven’t you met him yet? Good Lord, you mustn’t hesitate another moment. You and Pére are the only two men I’ve ever met whose communism really comes from the heart. Put on that beautiful rabbit-fur bonnet of yours. We’re going down to the Rue Clauzel.”
As they wound down the Rue Lepic, Gauguin told Pére Tanguy’s story. “He used to be a plasterer before he came to Paris. He worked as a colour-grinder in the house of Edouard, then took the job of concierge somewhere on the Butte. His wife looked after the house and Pére began peddling colours through the quarter. He met Pissarro, Monet, and Cezanne, and since they liked him, we all started buying our colours from him. He joined the communists during the last uprising; one day while he was dreaming on sentry duty, a band from Versailles descended on his post. The poor fellow just couldn’t fire on another human being. He threw away his musket. He was sentenced to serve two years in the galleys at Brest for this treachery, but we got him out.
“He saved a few francs and opened this little shop in the Rue Clauzel. Lautrec painted the front of it blue for him. He was the first man in Paris to exhibit a Cezanne canvas. Since then we’ve all had our stuff there. Not that he ever sells a canvas. Ah, no! You see, Pére is a great lover of art, but since he is poor, he can’t afford to buy pictures. So he exhibits them in his little shop, where he can live among them all day.”
“You mean he wouldn’t sell a painting even if he got a good offer?”
“Decidedly not. He takes only pictures that he loves, and once he gets attached to a canvas, you can’t get it out of the shop. I was there one day when a well-dressed man came in, admired a Cezanne and asked how much it was. Any other dealer in Paris would have been delighted to sell it for sixty francs. Pére Tanguy looked at the canvas for a long time and then said, ‘Ah, yes, this one. It is a particularly good Cezanne. I cannot let it go under six hundred francs.’ When the man ran out, Pére took the painting off the wall and held it before him with tears in his eyes.”