Van Gogh and British Literature: The Influence of Felix Holt on His Mind and Art

Abstract

Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) was an artist of remarkable intellect and self-discipline, who was dedicated to learning to the end of his tragically brief life: “It’s a study I need, for I want to learn,” he noted in September 1889, just some months before his death.1 He believed that “one has to learn to read, as one has to learn to see and learn to live” (letter 155). He thus took reading very seriously and incorporated it into his life and art. In fact, Van Gogh was an ardent reader of world literature. A polyglot, he read Dutch, German, French, and British literature in the original languages.2 His interest in British literature, which dated from his childhood, was intensified in his early twenties when he lived and worked in London as an apprentice of Goupil & Cie, a renowned international art dealership. This formative period in Britain from 1873 to 1876 laid the foundation for the development of the young artist-to-be’s thoughts and worldview.3 By the time Van Gogh arrived, Britain, caught up in the ongoing process of industrialization, urbanization, and political reform, represented the most advanced modern civilization and its contradictions. Its capital was, in Charles Dickens’s terms, “a great (and dirty) city” that exhibited the complex spectacle of a modern metropolis: alongside the scenes of unrivalled wealth and glamor were those of widespread pauperism and inequality.4 Life in Victorian Britain with its splendor and squalor amazed the Dutchman:“I can’t tell you how interesting it is to see London and the trade and the way of life here, which are so very different from ours,” he wrote to his brother Theo in November 1873 (letter 15). This British sojourn also stirred social consciousness in him, drawing his attention to contemporary British art and literature, which squarely engaged with the topical issues of the day.5