ENDNOTES

1. John Sillevis, “Romanticism and Realism,” in The Hague School Dutch Masters of the 19th Century , ed. Ronald de Leeuw, John Sillevis, and Charles Dumas (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1983), 42.

2. Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh Vol. 1, Letter 130 (New York: Bulfinch Press, 2000), 189.

3. Debora Silverman, “A Passion for Reality”, chap. in Van Gogh and Gauguin the Search for Sacred Art (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), 146-48.

4. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.1, Letter 133, 197.

5. Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh Vol.2, Letter 337 (New York: Bulfinch Press, 2000), 194.

6. In Van Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, we find similar symbolic meaning. God is present in the landscape represented by the church in the distance. In the foreground, we find people hard at work in the bleaching fields symbolizing the sanctity of manual labor.

7. Silverman, Sacred, 140.

8. Silverman, Sacred, 140.

9. Silverman, Sacred, 140.

10. Cornelia Homberg, “Vincent van Gogh’s Avant-Garde Strategies,” chap. in Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard (New York: Rizzoli,2000),38.

11. Van Gogh, Letters Vol. 2, Letter 488, 566.

12. Homberg, “Strategies,”40.

13. Carol Zemel, Van Gogh’s Progress Utopia Modernity, and Late Nineteenth Century Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 40; 62-3. Zemel has pointed out that Van Gogh had a wish to return to the simple, peasant life of the weavers of the village of Nuenen where he grew up. Zemel explained that Van Gogh read books, like George Eliot’s Silas Marner (1861), which reinforced this longing for a “Bucolic Paradise”. She writes that “the novel is set, like a fairy tale,”in “districts far away…deep in the bosom of the hills.” I believe that Zemel’s use of Eliot’s quotation “deep in the bosom of the hills”, almost perfectly describes, Van Gogh’s depiction of the village set among the mountains in the painting.

14. Homberg, “Strategies,”40.; Paul Gauguin, “Letter to Emile Schuffenecker” August 14, 1888; quoted in Cornelia Homberg, “Van Gogh’s Avant –Garde Strategies,” in Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard (New York: Rizzoli, 2000), 43. Homberg explains “During his two month visit to Arles, Gauguin tried to convince Van Gogh that he should not paint from nature, but base his composition on memory. Only then, could the artist use his imagination to create a truly, modern work of art that was an extraction from nature instead of a representation.” Gauguin articulated his ideas on painting from his imagination in a letter to a friend. He wrote, “Do not copy too much from nature. Art is an abstraction; derive it from nature whilst dreaming in front of nature, and think more of its creation than the result.”

15. Albert Boime, “Van Gogh’s Starry Night: A History of Matter and a Matter of History,” Arts Magazine LIX (December 1984): 90.

16. Boime, “History,” 90.

17. Silverman, Sacred, 77.

18. Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh Vol.3, Letter 592 (New York: Bulfinch Press, 2000), 173.

19. Debora Silverman, “Pilgrims Progress and Vincent van Gogh’s Métier,” in Van Gogh in England : Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ed. Martain Bailey (London : Barbican Art Gallery,1992),99; 107. Silverman wrote that in Pilgrim’s Progress, “the pilgrims rely on optical instruments to help focus their sighting of the divine centre. In the culminating scene of part one …shepherds offer …their perspective glass – an early name for a spy glass or telescope – to bring the city gates into sharp view.” She goes on to explain that, “When Van Gogh turned from religion to art , he converted the theology of optical singularity into a visual practice, facilitated by a craft tool bearing a striking affinity to the perspective glass relied on by Bunyan’s pilgrims –his perspective frame .”

20.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.1, Letter 223, 433.

21. Ann Murray, “Strange and Subtle Perspective: Van Gogh, The Hague School and the Dutch Landscape Tradition,” Art History Vol.3 N.4 (December 1980) : 413. Murray writes of this use of duel perspective points, “Two …structures of drastically different sizes, that accentuate the intervening distance-has a more pronounced affinity with compositional schemes found in landscapes of The Hague School…and from great seventeenth century Dutch painters.”

22. Josua Bruyn, “Toward a Scriptural Reading of Seventeenth Century Dutch Landscape Paintings,” in Masters of Seventeenth Century Dutch Landscape Painting, ed. Peter Sutton (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1987), 97. Bryn explains that these landscape scenes have religious overtones referencing the Bible. Images with a traveler in the foreground and a church in the distance symbolize man’s spiritual journey like that of the pilgrim in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The distant Church is the final destination; the heavenly city of Jerusalem.

23. Lauren Soth, “Van Gogh’s Agony”, The Art Bulletin Vol.LXVIII N.2 (June 1986): 312.; Ronald Pickvance, Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers (New York: Harry Abrams Inc., 1986), 103.

24.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 605, 208.

25. It was also common practice to place a tree in the foreground as a compositional device in the Japanese woodblock prints, which Van Gogh admired and collected.

26. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 541, 47.

27. Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski, “Vincent van Gogh’s Paintings of Olive Trees and Cypresses from St. Rémy”, The Art Bulletin Vol. LXXV N.4 (December 1993): 657.

28. J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971), 53.; Jean Chevalier, The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 93. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 594,179. Cirlot writes that the colors green and black have a strong symbolic connection. Green is the color of vegetation and black is the color of the fertilized earth. This combination of these two colors symbolizes the cycle of death and regeneration. In my opinion, Van Gogh’s combing of these two colors for the cypress may also symbolize this idea of rebirth or immortality. Chevalier writes of a similar symbolism of the color black, “In the west black is the color of mourning, yet originally it was a symbol of fertility, in ancient Egypt, for example; and in North Africa, being the color of rich earth.” It is also interesting to note that Van Gogh referred to the Egyptians in his letters as “eternal tillers of the soil.” One wonders, if he knew of this symbolism, especially since he also associated the cypress with Egyptian obelisks as noted in this study.

29. Linda Orr, Jules Michelet Nature, History, Language (Ithica:Cornell University Press,1976), 34. Orr drew a similar conclusion about the flame –like appearance of the cypress tree based on the writings of Jules Michelet. She felt that Michelet’s description of the cypress in his book The Mountain may have inspired Van Gogh’s flame-like treatment of the tree. She wrote, “The cypress tree is infused with energy, movement, and light, with the flickering quality of passing between two worlds, earth and air, reality and dream.” She then went on to quote Michelet who wrote, “The Persian idea, true as well as sublime, is that the cypress, a pyramidal tree whose tip imitates a flame, is a mediator of land and sky.” (La Montagne, pg. 129.) She went on to conclude that this quote was “An imaginable model for Van Gogh’s hallucination.”

30.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.2, Letter 596, 185.

31.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 520, 7.

32.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 347, 234.

33. Boime, “History,” 90. Charles Whitney, “The Skies of Vincent van Gogh,” Art History Vol.9 N.3 (Sept 1986): 357.

34. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 593, 177.

35. Boime, “History,” 91.; Whitney, “Skies,” 357. Boime attempted to identify three of the stars as the constellation Aries. However, Whitney disagreed feeling the stars represented the constellation Cygnus the Swan.

36.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.1, Letter101, 127. Van Gogh wrote of his association of the celestial bodies with the presence of God, “The Moon is still shining, and the sun and evening star, which is a good thing–and they also often speak of the Love of God, and make one think of the words: Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

37.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 543, 56.

38. Sven Loevgren, Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and French Symbolism in the 1880’s (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1959), 183.

39. Loevgren, Seurat, 180.

40. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter W8, 445.; Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (New York: The Modern Library, 2001), 522.; Van Gogh, Letters Vol.2, Letter 337, 193.; Van Gogh, Letters Vol.2, Letter 337,193. In letter W8, Van Gogh encouraged his sister Will to read Whitman’s poetry. He noted a particular love for the poem, “A Prayer of Columbus.” He wrote: Have you read the American poems by Whitman?...I strongly advise you to read them…He sees in the future, and even in the present, a world of healthy, carnal love, strong and frank--of friendship--of work-- under the great starlit vault of heaven as something which after all, one can only call God -- and eternity in its place above the world. At first it makes you smile, it is all so candid and pure; but it sets you thinking for the same reason. The “Prayer of Columbus” is very beautiful." Van Gogh may have found comfort in several sections of “Prayer of Columbus.” In the poem, Whitman referred to the power of God as “A ray of light…Rare unintelligible.” This type of linguistic imagery would have appealed to Van Gogh, because he often referred to the divine power of God, as a “Ray on high.” He might also have identified with this particular poem because it speaks of life’s journey, as one traveled on a rough sea seeking the guidance of the Lord. This idea is also found in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Van Gogh viewed his choice to become an artist as a perilous ocean journey under divine guidance. He wrote, “I will take the risk and push off to the open sea. And you will immediately get a certain somber earnestness…one looks at the quiet coast …but the secret of the depth, the intimate serious charm of the artist’s life – with Something on High over it – will take hold of you.”

41.David Kuebrich, Minor Prophecy Walt Whitman’s New American Religion (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1989), 122.

42. Kuebrich, New, 125. Kuebrich explained that on the night of President Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Whitman wrote in his notebook that the “western star, Venus…has never been so large, so clear…it seemed a “miracle” which “suffused the soul.” Kuebrich went on to say that after the President’s death, the poet identified Lincoln’s immortal soul with Venus, in his poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed.” In this poem Whitman wrote, “O powerful western fallen star!” in reference to Lincoln. Kuebrich felt that this quote refers to resurrection and immortality. I would also note, several other examples of Whitman’s association of stars with immortality and the eternal can be found in the poems “On a Beach at Night” and “Night on the Prairies”.

43.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 506, 605.; Whitman, Leaves, 558. Van Gogh’s comment on how the soul may take “death to reach a star” is very similar in sentiment to Whitman’s poem “Night on the Prairie.” In the Poem, he wrote: I stand and look at the stars…Now I absorb immortality and peace; I admire death and test its propositions…How plenteous How spiritual!...Now while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me I measure myself by them. Now touched by the lives of other globes arrived as far along as Earth, waiting to arrive, or passed on farther than those of earth…I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me…I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

44. Presently, I am working on my master's thesis exploring both Whitman and Van Gogh’s interest in the plight of the lower classes of society. Both men treated peasant and working class laborers in their work. Through its attempt to explore this avenue of thematic influence, my study will widen this field of scholarship to explore mutual social and political ideologies. By exploring these sociopolitical philosophies, which affected both men’s views on the poor and laboring classes, this study will attempt to give a new and deeper understanding of the influence of Whitman’s poetry on Van Gogh’s art.

45. Boime, “History,” 92.; Whitney, “Skies,” 358.

46. The crescent moon also appears in Van Gogh’s Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon, (1889-90) and Road with Cypress and Star, (1890).

47. “Recueil de psaumes et cantiques a l’orage des eglises reformees,” (Paris: 1865); quoted in Soth, “Agony,” 309. L’ Eternel seul est ma lumiere Ma deliverance et mon appui: Qu’aurai-je a craindre sur la terre Puisque ma force est toute en lui?

48. “Revelations xii,” The Bible; quoted in Meyer Schapiro, “On a Painting of Van Gogh,” chap. in Modern Art 19th and 20th Centuries Selected Papers (New York: Georges Braziller, 1979), 95.

49. Boime, “History,” 93.; Whitney, “Skies,” 360.

50. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 539, 44.

51. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 613, 227.

52. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 595, 183.

53.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.2, Letter 431, 433.

54.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 543, 57.

55. Van Gogh, Letters Vol. 3, Letter 611, 226.

56.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 533, 29; quoted in Ronald Dorn, “The Arles Period Symbolic Means, Decorative Ends,” in Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits, ed. The Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit: The Detroit Institute of Art, 2000), 135-71, n.24.

57. Van Gogh, Letters Vol.3, Letter 520, 6.

58.Van Gogh, Letters Vol.2, Letter 595, 183.

59. Silverman, Sacred, 83.

60. Albert Aurier, “The Isolated Ones,” in Van Gogh in Saint – Rémy and Auvers, Ronald Pickvance (New York: Harry Abrams Inc., 1986), 311.; Carol Zemel, The Formation of a Legend: Van Gogh Criticism, 1860-1920 (Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1980), 25. Shortly before his death, by suicide in Auvers, in 1890, Van Gogh received the first extensive critical recognition of his work, by the critic Albert Aurier. Aurier was an ardent Symbolist. He applied these theories to Van Gogh’s work. It was his essay "The Isolated Ones", which set the critical standard for viewing Van Gogh’s work. Aurier’s article painted Van Gogh as a “terrible maddened genus.” linking Van Gogh’s creative abilities with his unstable mental state.

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