« Il y a tant de gens surtout dans les copains qui s’imaginent que les paroles ne sont rien.
Au contraire n’est ce pas, c’est aussi intéressant
& aussi difficile de bien dire une chôse que de peindre une chôse. »
Vincent van Gogh à Émile Bernard, le 19 avril 1888
Up until 1886 Van Gogh wrote almost all his letters in Dutch, and thereafter almost always in French. The ratio of Dutch to French is roughly 2:1.33 His French was very good, thanks to his contacts with Francophones and his reading. He regularly came into contact with it from the age of 16, not just from what he read but also in the daily business of the art trade. French was the language of the upper classes in Holland, and in addition The Hague was the political, diplomatic and cultural capital of the Netherlands. It stands to reason that he took French lessons for his work, or was obliged to take them.34 Moreover, he spent a total of a year in Paris while working for Goupil & Cie, and was almost three years in Francophone surroundings in the Borinage and Brussels. After spending a further two years living and working in Paris (1886-1888), he consequently told his sisterWil, to whom he had previously written in Dutch: ‘If you’ll let me write to you in French, that will really make my letter easier for me’ (670). He and Theo also corresponded in French, and the letters that he later wrote to his mother show that he had lost his facility with Dutch. They are wooden and less fluent.
http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letter_writer_3.html
