Letter 1, page 1

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Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Paris, ca. December 1887, Letter 1, page 1

Pen and blue ink on one vertically folded sheet of cream, machine-made laid paper

Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007

MA 6441.1
Translation: 

54 rue Lepic.

My dear old Bernard,
I feel the need to beg your pardon for leaving you so abruptly the other day. Which I therefore do
herewith, without delay. I recommend that you read Tolstoy's Les Légendes Russes, and I'll also let
you have the article on E. Delacroix that I've spoken to you about.

I, for my part, did go to Guillaumin's anyway, but in the evening, and I thought that perhaps
you didn't know his address, which is 13 quai d'Anjou. I believe that, as a man, Guillaumin has
sounder ideas than the others, and that if we were all like him we'd produce more good things and
would have less time and inclination to be at each other's throats.

I persist in believing that—not because I gave you a rocket but because it will become your
own conviction—I persist in believing that you'll realize that in the studios not only does one not
learn very much as far as painting goes, but not much that's good in terms of savoir vivre, either.

© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam