Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter in search of the magic in everyday moments.
As I’ve been reading Dear Theo this summer — the collection of letters that Vincent van Gogh wrote to his beloved younger brother — one of the things I’ve enjoyed most is learning about the places that shaped him.
He wrote to his brother from Brussels, London, and Paris. He wrote to Theo from a small Dutch village called Etten, where their parents lived for a while and Vincent officially registered as an artist for the first time. And one of the most pivotal letters I’ve read so far was sent from a place called the Borinage.
The Borinage was coal-mining country in the south of Belgium, and Vincent was sent there to preach to the miners. Even though he was let go from that position after only six months, he stayed for two years — and from everything I’ve read, it was in the Borinage that Vincent the artist was truly born.
The second letter I’d like to share with you follows Vincent’s transformation, and the moment he decides that he “shall rise again” and “take up my pencil.”
Maybe there’s something you dream of bringing to life this summer; if so, I hope you’ll be encouraged by Vincent’s words in this letter. That you’ll take up your own pencil, or paintbrush or whatever the tools of your trade may be, and rise again.
With love,
Candace
While I don’t think the huts I found to illustrate this letter are the same miner’s huts that Vincent would have called home in the Borinage, I’ve still been fascinated by how drawn he was to the same subjects throughout his life (he famously described cottages as “human nests”).
The above works are respectively held by the Museum of John Paul II in Warsaw (“Country Huts among Trees” is Poland’s only painting by Vincent van Gogh, in fact); Museo Soumaya in Mexico City; the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam; and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. I can’t wait to share one last letter from Vincent with you next week.
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