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Van Gogh On Connoisseurship

What does it mean to know something? To know something well? While Vincent van Gogh certainly did not think of himself as a connoisseur (maybe he thought of his brother Theo as being one), he was obviously interested in these questions, and, if we are ready to read his letters carefully, left us some clues as to his understanding of knowing and, not least, of seeing.

Van Gogh On Connoisseurship

(Picture: pinterest.com)

Johanna van Gogh

(Picture: nlamore)

A Van Gogh connoisseur might know this: did Vincent van Gogh ever paint wisteria?
Wisteria (in German: ›Blauregen‹ or ‹Glyzinie‹) are mentioned in his correspondence twice. And with the first mentioning Van Gogh refers, in 1889 and while being still at Arles, to a painting that Van Gogh scholarship identifies as the picture shown above. I must say that I can see the chestnuts in blossom, that I can see the cherry tree in blossom, but I am not completely sure if I can see a wisteria plant in that picture.
But this is not about Van Gogh connoisseurship but about how Vincent van Gogh himself felt about knowing and seeing, and therefore the other mentioning of wisteria is of even more importance to us. It occurs in the letter that Van Gogh, after being admitted to the Saint-Rémy asylum on May 8, 1889, did write to his sister-in-law Johanna on May 9. And there is obviously a connection between the first and the second mentioning of wisteria, because the first, referring to a wisteria plant at Arles, dates exactly one week earlier than the second mentioning, with the wisteria, however, not being the main topic that Van Gogh writes about (at Saint-Rémy, and obviously having taken the impression of wisteria from Arles to Saint-Rémy). He is speaking about Paris, about Jo apparently not loving Paris (but maybe loving wisteria), and about what it means to know something, to see, and yes, to love.

Ne pourrait-il pas être le cas qu’en aimant une chôse on la voit mieux et plus juste qu’en ne l’aimant pas.

Could it not be the case that in liking a thing one sees it better and more accurately than in not liking it.

(Picture/source: vangoghletters.org)

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It is open to discussion if the verb ›to like‹ is the adequate translation of the verb ›aimer‹ here. But this is not the main point, because it is about the general thought and not about degrees of emotion (this discussion might follow later): Is the popular wisdom which says that ›love makes blind‹ actually wrong? Or at least: only half right?
Because, and this is now an interpretation of the basic thought, if someone loves someone or something, the loving individual might bring out what it is best in the loved object (the loved object, one might say, in its best ›version‹) and therefore perceives features that others (that not ›love‹ or ›like‹ the object) would not perceive and see (and we see now why the degree of the emotion is not our primary concern).
Or (the devil’s advocate is supposed to say now): the loving individual only equips the loved object with features worthy to love, and in that the love would be, in nature, illusionary, in that these features do not exist, but in the loving person’s mind (but what if two do this for each other, one might reply…).

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I tend to say that ›to love‹ would be the adequate translation, not least because Vincent van Gogh seems to adhere to a tradition of thought that goes back to theological thinking of the Middle Ages. It is, however, not necessary to go back as far as to the medieval thinker Bonaventure, because in more modern times for example Johann Wolfgang Goethe uttered similar thoughts. Goethe, who, in 1812, suggested the following motto in a letter to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi:

»Man lernt nichts kennen, als was man liebt, und je tiefer und vollständiger die Kenntniß werden soll, desto stärker, kräftiger und lebendiger muß Liebe, ja Leidenschaft seyn.«
(One doesn’t get to know except what one does love and the more profound and complete the knowledge is supposed to become, the more vigorous, powerful and lively love, indeed passion must be.«)

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The reason why the basic thought is of importance in connoisseurship is obvious: only the connoisseur who loves would be able to perceive qualities in a work of art, qualities worthy to be loved, qualities that another (not-loving) beholder would not see, and therefore this other beholder would not be able to rely on such qualities as clues to ascertain authorship.
If someone would now fear that this would set connoisseurship on a very uncertain footing, because the connoisseur might equip the work of art with imagined qualities, qualities that become and remain visible only to the loving connoisseur, we may refer here to the philosopher John H. Brown, who has pointed out in his brilliant paper that the subjective judgment of quality might be allowed as long as intersubjectivity remains guaranteed: by the connoisseur explaining what he thinks of being »good« in works of art in general; and by the connoisseur explaining to his fellow-connoisseurs why and in what sense he judges something as being »good« in the object at hand.
The crucial thing would therefore not be to eliminate subjective judgments from connoisseurship, but to make all judgment transparent to everybody, and to perceive it as one possibility upon what judgment of authorship could be based, a possibility among many others and not necessarily (although some did want it this way) a privileged one (and without intersubjectivity guaranteed, which is a painstaking task, to guarantee it, and not much loved by some ›old-school‹-connoisseurs…).

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A Van Gogh connoisseur might know this: how the theological beliefs of Vincent van Gogh developed over time (and I would go as far as saying who doesn’t know the theological undercurrent in Van Gogh doesn’t really know Van Gogh, nor his art). But instead of tracing back the belief that expresses in his, as always, warmhearted letter to Johanna of May 9, 1889, we might go back several years in time and hear 27year old Vincent van Gogh giving, in 1880, his world view that yet included this very relationship between loving and knowing (source again: vangoghletters.org):

»Now likewise, everything in men and in their works that is truly good, and beautiful with an inner moral, spiritual and sublime beauty, I think that that comes from God, and that everything that is bad and wicked in the works of men and in men, that’s not from God, and God doesn’t find it good, either. But without intending it, I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing God is to love a great deal.
Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards; that’s what I say to myself. But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more. That leads to God, that leads to unshakeable faith.
Someone, to give an example, will love Rembrandt, but seriously, that man will know there is a God, he’ll believe firmly in Him.
Someone will make a deep study of the history of the French Revolution — he will not be an unbeliever, he will see that in great things, too, there is a sovereign power that manifests itself.
Someone will have attended, for a time only, the free course at the great university of poverty, and will have paid attention to the things he sees with his eyes and hears with his ears, and will have thought about it; he too, will come to believe, and will perhaps learn more about it than he could say.
Try to understand the last word of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces; there will be God in it. Someone has written or said it in a book, someone in a painting.«

But yes, it might be a wisteria plant (this picture, by the way, shows a bonsai wisteria: picture: artofbonsai.org)

In February 1889 Vincent van Gogh had gotten a letter wherin his brother Theo (above) had been referred to as a connoisseur (»een kenner als Theo«) (picture: artexpertswebsite.com)

A waiting zone in a modern hospital. The newspaper on the table had, by the way, a Van Gogh story in it… (picture: DS)

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