{"id":93102,"date":"2015-12-31T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T14:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=93102"},"modified":"2015-12-21T12:44:59","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T17:44:59","slug":"idle-bird-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/31\/idle-bird-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Idle Bird"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. Please enjoy, and have a happy New Year!<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_86567\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/coalmine-in-the-borinage-18791.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-86567\" class=\"wp-image-86567\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/coalmine-in-the-borinage-18791.jpg\" alt=\"coalmine-in-the-borinage-1879(1)\" width=\"600\" height=\"417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/coalmine-in-the-borinage-18791.jpg 1930w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/coalmine-in-the-borinage-18791-300x209.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/coalmine-in-the-borinage-18791-768x534.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/coalmine-in-the-borinage-18791-1024x712.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-86567\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vincent van Gogh, <i>Coalmine in the Borinage<\/i>, 1879.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Van Gogh finds art in the Borinage.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In October of 1879, Theo van Gogh went to visit his brother, Vincent, in the Borinage coal-mining district of Belgium. Theo was en route to Paris, where he had business to conduct as an art dealer; Vincent was doing self-appointed missionary work. The pair walked along an abandoned quarry that reminded them of a canal they\u2019d frequented as children in Holland, but now there was an undeniable rift between them. Theo, upset by Vincent\u2019s appearance\u2014he had given away nearly all of his clothes to the miners, and had ceased bathing\u2014told him, \u201cYou are not the same any longer.\u201d He felt that Vincent was wasting his time in this squalid place, and suggested that he leave to take up a different trade.<\/p>\n<p>Angry at his brother\u2019s inability to understand him, Vincent wrote a letter to Theo on October 15 that would be the last for ten months. The brothers had been writing letters to each other almost unceasingly since 1872, when Vincent was nineteen and Theo fifteen. This would be the first and deepest rupture between them, a silence that would never repeat itself. Referring to Theo\u2019s accusation of \u201cidleness,\u201d Vincent wrote with bitterness, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/10\/idle-bird\/\">Read More &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. Please enjoy, and have a happy New Year! Van Gogh finds art in the Borinage. In October of 1879, Theo van Gogh went to visit his brother, Vincent, in the Borinage coal-mining district of Belgium. Theo was en route to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":841,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20653],"tags":[35,10524,18415,18416,8618,18417,18418,182,4186,67,187,18414,4979],"class_list":["post-93102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2015","tag-art","tag-belgium","tag-borinage","tag-brussels","tag-christianity","tag-courrieres","tag-jules-breton","tag-letters","tag-mining","tag-painting","tag-poverty","tag-theo-van-gogh","tag-vincent-van-gogh"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Van Gogh Discovered Art in the Borinage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Frank letters to his brother from 1879 show a young artist struggling to find his way amid poverty and destitution.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/31\/idle-bird-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idle Bird by Nellie Hermann\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 31, 2015 \u2013 We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. 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