Vincent was determined to pursue his religious passions, even if it meant bypassing the formal schooling, and he journeyed to the Borinage region in southern Belgium, first to a village named Wasmes and later, in 1879, to another called Cuesmes. He received some brief training for this from a missionary society in Brussells.
He felt deeply the bleakness of the people of the region and tried to reach out to them with his compassion and fervor, even going so far as giving away most of the money his family sent. Rather than embracing him and appreciating his efforts, the people found him eccentric and were put off by his overzealous nature and generally untidy appearance, which he later dismissed as his way of ensuring his needed solitude.
While in Cuesmes, his interest in religion began to wane in direct proportion to the increase in his interest in art. He decided then to pursue a career as an artist. He began drawing the miners and other laborers in the area.
He began writing to Theo again, hoping to reestablish their friendship and expressing the desire to mend fences with their father. In a very objective self-analysis, he wrote to Theo that he is “a man of passions, capable of and given to doing more or less outrageous things” which he later regrets, but he reckons, what can be done? “Should I consider myself a dangerous person unfit for anything?” He wished that the world at large (and his family in particular) would stop seeing him as a ne’er-do-well in the sense of being lazy and unwilling to conform to the demands of society in work and living, but felt he could accept the role of ne’er-do-well if people would understand he was more like a caged bird watching other free birds doing birdly things like building nests, hatching and raising their young and migrating – he knows he should do those things, but being in his own personal “cage”, he was unable to meet those demands.
In July 1880, Theo began providing him financial support, which would continue the rest of Vincent’s life to one degree or another.
Miners in the Snow at Dawn (drawing) - August 20, 1880 -- another letter sketch
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He felt deeply the bleakness of the people of the region and tried to reach out to them with his compassion and fervor, even going so far as giving away most of the money his family sent. Rather than embracing him and appreciating his efforts, the people found him eccentric and were put off by his overzealous nature and generally untidy appearance, which he later dismissed as his way of ensuring his needed solitude.
While in Cuesmes, his interest in religion began to wane in direct proportion to the increase in his interest in art. He decided then to pursue a career as an artist. He began drawing the miners and other laborers in the area.
He began writing to Theo again, hoping to reestablish their friendship and expressing the desire to mend fences with their father. In a very objective self-analysis, he wrote to Theo that he is “a man of passions, capable of and given to doing more or less outrageous things” which he later regrets, but he reckons, what can be done? “Should I consider myself a dangerous person unfit for anything?” He wished that the world at large (and his family in particular) would stop seeing him as a ne’er-do-well in the sense of being lazy and unwilling to conform to the demands of society in work and living, but felt he could accept the role of ne’er-do-well if people would understand he was more like a caged bird watching other free birds doing birdly things like building nests, hatching and raising their young and migrating – he knows he should do those things, but being in his own personal “cage”, he was unable to meet those demands.
In July 1880, Theo began providing him financial support, which would continue the rest of Vincent’s life to one degree or another.
Miners in the Snow at Dawn (drawing) - August 20, 1880 -- another letter sketch
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