Nuenen, Monday, 4 and Tuesday, 5 May I could say things against it myself by way of criticism that would probably escape most critics. I hear Tissot has an exhibition — have you seen it? It all comes down to the degree of life and passion that an artist manages to put into his figure. So long as they really live, a figure of a lady by Alfred Stevens , say, or some Tissot s are also really magnificent.
And the peasants by Lhermitte , Millet , are so fine precisely because of the life. There must be many fine paintings, among the very ones that were not reproduced. But when I think about a Salon of 70 or 74, to give an example — it seems to me that the standard was higher, and since then people have — declined. When one just looks through the Boetzel Albums, 10 for instance. And I none. And his painting at the Salon 2 years ago, dragging that pink into the sea. His peasant seems to have been painted with the very soil he sows.
I just read a review in The Graphic of an exhibition of 25 drawings by Fred Walker. Pinwell too. How they were the first tonists. But I remember peasants on the land by Pinwell 15 — the Harbour of refuge by Walker 16 — of which one could also say, painted with the Soil. Wine , of course, contains moisture or water particles naturally — and there will always be water in it by the nature of the thing.
But too much water in it — and it becomes weak. I do definitely say, though, that one may well watch out a little in our so pure?
Do you know what people could learn something from in this regard? I remember The skaters and The walk on the ramparts from the series. In both paintings figures in the snow, and both paintings not grey at all, as light as the present Dutchmen would paint snow. That little painting by Millet that you once mentioned to me as the archetype of an Impressionist painting — is that in the Luxembourg? All the same, I think that many a Dutch landscape would become white and colourful compared with that tone.
